Jun 21, 2018 | Events, News
The ICJ will participate today in the side event “State of emergency and attacks on the legal profession in Turkey” organized by IBAHRI, the Law Society, and the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales.
This side event at the Human Rights Council takes place on Thursday, 21 June, 15:00-16:00, room XXV of the Palais des Nations.
It is co-sponsored by Lawyers for Lawyers, Union Internationale des Avocats, Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada.
In this side event, panelists will share their analysis on the impact of the state of emergency on the rule of law and the ongoing obstacles faced by the legal profession in Turkey since the failed coup in 2016.
They will also discuss Turkey’s derogations from its international and regional human rights obligations, as well as the response of regional and international human rights mechanisms to this situation.
Panelists:
- Özlem Zingil, Turkish lawyer;
- Massimo Frigo, International Commission of Jurists;
- Tony Fisher, Chair of the Human Rights Committee of the Law Society of England and Wales;
- Stephen Cragg QC, Secretary of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales;
- Natacha Bracq, Programme Lawyer, International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute.
Geneva-SideEvent-StateofEmergencyLawyersTurkey-IBAHRI&others-June2018-ENG (download the flyer)
Jun 20, 2018 | News
The Trump administration’s broader rejection of multilateralism and rule of law, its actual practices, and paralysis of other States, are the real issues, says the ICJ.
On the evening of 19 June, the United States of America announced it was formally abandoning its membership of the UN Human Rights Council.
“The withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council is symptomatic of its broader rejection of multilateralism and rule of law, and how it acts in practice, both at home and abroad,” said ICJ Secretary General Sam Zarifi in reaction.
The inhuman caging of thousands of migrant and refugee children, and turning a blind eye to the grave human rights violations in North Korea, are but two recent and glaring examples, along with a recent highly critical report by the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, following his visit to the US last year.
Even more concerning, the US retreat comes at the same time as openly racist and nationalist authoritarianism rises across Europe. Even where they are not immediately succeeding in coming to power, such movements are slowly paralyzing Europe at exactly the time its moderating or progressive influence on world affairs in general, and human rights in particular, is most needed.
The US in fact is cooperating in New York with the very same countries it publicly condemns, to cut the funding and mandate for the day-to-day human rights work of the UN – whether through the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Secretary General’s Rights up Front Initiative, or UN country offices. And many many other countries are complicit in that exercise by their silence.
With moves by other powerful States to seize and dilute the UN’s human rights machinery, it has never been more important for other States sincerely committed to defending human rights and the rule of law to step into the empty seats the US is leaving behind.
Jun 20, 2018 | Advocacy, News
Today, the ICJ held a joint side event at the 38th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council on freedoms of expression, association and assembly in the context of elections in Asia.
The event was co-organized by the ICJ, in collaboration with Forum Asia and Human Rights Watch.
Kingsley Abbott, ICJ Senior Legal Adviser, spoke at the event, highlighting the regression in human rights and the rule of law in the Southeast Asian region, focusing on Thailand and Cambodia in the lead up to elections.
He identified recent developments in the misuse of the law to violate human rights in Thailand and Cambodia, and called for a necessary push back against the weaponization of the law and the misuse of the principle of the ‘rule of law’ in both countries.
Other speakers at the event included Iniyan Ilango, from Forum Asia, who spoke about fundamental freedoms in the context of elections in Bangladesh and the Maldives and other countries in Asia; and UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, who addressed the event more broadly on the protection and promotion of freedom of assembly and association in the context of elections.
The event was moderated by by Laila Matar, Deputy Director, United Nations, Human Rights Watch.
Contact
Kingsley Abbott, Senior Legal Adviser, ICJ Asia Pacific Regional Office, t: +66 94 470 1345, e: kingsley.abbott(a)icj.org
Thailand-Cambodia-Side-event-HRC38-Freedoms-of-Expression-Advocacy-2018-ENG (full speech in PDF)
Jun 19, 2018 | Advocacy
The ICJ welcomes the proposal of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in its Recommendation 2121(2018) calling for the development of a Council of Europe Convention on the Profession of Lawyer.
The ICJ believes that such a Convention could make an important contribution to strengthening the rule of law and the protection of human rights in the Council of Europe region, building on existing Council of Europe standards and jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.
The ICJ particularly welcomes PACE’s call for an effective control mechanism to be put in place under a new Convention, as recent developments in a number of Council of Europe Member States show a significant gap in implementation of Council of Europe standards on the independence and security of lawyers.
Lawyers, along with judges and prosecutors, are one of the pillars on which protection of the rule of law and human rights through the justice system rests.
Recognizing this, the ICJ, since its foundation in 1952, has worked to protect lawyers under threat and to develop international standards for the independence, role and integrity of the profession.
Successive ICJ Declarations, adopted by leading jurists from all regions of the world, have affirmed that the role of the legal profession is “paramount in safeguarding human rights and the Rule of Law” (2008 Declaration on Upholding the Rule of Law and the Role of Judges and Lawyers in Times of Crisis (ICJ 2008 Declaration).
In any legal system, the legal profession plays a pivotal role in ensuring access to justice and effective remedies and accountability for violations of human rights, as well as upholding the right to fair trial, right to liberty and freedom from torture and other ill-treatment in the criminal justice process.
In defending criminal cases, in advising and representing victims of human rights violations and their relatives or in challenging before the courts national legislation or policy that is contrary to human rights , lawyers give practical effect to human rights guarantees and rule of law principles.
The importance of this role has been recognized by international standards as well as in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, which has emphasized the “specific status of lawyers [having] a central position in the administration of justice as intermediaries between the public and the courts”.
It is thus of fundamental importance that lawyers are able to fulfill their professional duties without interference. As the European Court of Human Rights has held, “persecution and harassment of members of the legal profession strikes at the very heart of the Convention system.”
Full text in ENG (PDF): Europe-Drafting-a-EU-Convention-on-the-Profession-of-Lawyer-2018-ENG
Jun 18, 2018 | News
The ICJ today called on the Hungarian National Assembly to reject Bill No. T/333 that, if approved, would risk criminalizing the work of civil society, lawyers and other human rights defenders and lead to violations of the rights of migrants, especially refugees.
The National Assembly of Hungary is considering today Bill No. T/333 tabled by the Hungarian Government that amends immigration and criminal law.
“This draft law would effectively punish activities that aim to apply legal procedures” said Massimo Frigo. “This attack on the work of lawyers and human rights defenders does not constitute a legitimate aim that would allow for a permissible restriction on the rights of freedom of expression, assembly and association consistent with international human rights law.”
The ICJ warned that the draft law, if approved, would, in contravention of international standards, open the way to arrest, prosecute and convict lawyers or representatives of civil society who assist asylum seekers in filing their application for international protection. It would also make funding of such activities a crime.
The law would effectively prevent lawyers and civil society organizations, under threat of criminal punishment, from providing assistance to asylum-seekers unless they can verify that the person is entitled to international protection, even before the person has begun the refugee status determination procedure.
It would further criminalize any activity aimed at regularizing the position of an irregular migrant who had, for example, married a Hungarian citizen or became a parent of Hungarian children.
“This draft law should be rejected because it could in practice deny legal assistance to any asylum seeker, preventing them from defending their rights, ” said Massimo Frigo.
Bill T/333 has been criticized by UNHCR, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights and several national and international civil society organisations. An opinion of the Venice Commission on the law is expected to be published shortly.
Background
If approved in the current form, section 11 of the draft law would insert in the Criminal Code the offence of “facilitating illegal immigration”, as new section 353/A. This provision, if approved, would make it a criminal offence to carry out organized activities to facilitate the initiation of an asylum procedure for persons “who are not persecuted” in their country of origin or in a third country that they passed through, or “do not have a well-founded reason to fear direct persecution.”
This provision would also make it a criminal offence to carry out these activities to assist a person entering illegaly or residing illegally in Hungary to obtain a residence permit.
The draft law would also make it a criminal offence to provide financial means to carry out these activities.
Full Document in English (PDF): Hungary-Statement-National-Assembly-Criminalizing-Assistance-to-Migrants-Law-2018-ENG
