Sep 17, 2018 | News
On 16 September, the Constitutional Court made public its decision to order that the Commissioner of the International Commission against Impunity (CICIG) Iván Velásquez be permitted to re-enter the country.
For more than a decade, the UN-backed CICIG has helped investigate high-profile officials for corruption.
Under the tenure of head commissioner Ivan Velasquez, the CICIG has helped Guatemalan prosecutors investigate and prosecute many high-level politicians, judges and government officials, including former president Otto Perez Molina and members of his cabinet.
Elected in 2015, current President Jimmy Morales initially supported the CICIG but he himself and other family members have become subjects of investigations into illegal campaign financing. They deny all charges.
President Morales declared on 31 August that he would not renew the mandate of the CICIG which is due to expire in September 2019 and then proceeded to ban Commissioner Velasquez from re-entering the country.
This decision sparked a number of protests including legal challenges in the Constitutional Court.
“The decision by the Constitutional Court should permit the CICIG to continue its work. It removes one of the greatest obstacles, imposed by order of Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales himself, to the fulfilment of Guatemala’s international obligations, as enshrined in the International Accord on Human Rights which created the Commission,” said Ramon Cadena, ICJ Director for Central America.
With respect to the amparo lawsuits which sought an injunction to reverse the the decision of the President Morales not to renew the mandate of the CICIG, the Constitutional Court declined to order provisional measures and therefore these legal proceedings will continue until they are determined in court.
“The ICJ urges the Constitutional Court to respect the legal time limits and to make a final decision on the lawsuit, in compliance with international human rights law and standards.
If the mandate of the CICIG were not renewed, it would seriously affect access to justice and constitute a major obstacle to the fulfilment of Guatemala’s international obligation to combat impunity,” Ramon Cadena added.
Sep 14, 2018 | News
The ICJ met this week in Warsaw with the First President of the Polish Supreme Court, Małgorzata Gersdorf.
Róisín Pillay, Director of the ICJ Europe and Central Asia Programme, met with President Gersdorf to convey the support of the ICJ for the Court’s defence of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary in Poland, in the face of government attacks.
The ICJ emphasized that a new law on the Supreme Court that attempts to force the “retirement” of 27 of the 72 Supreme Court judges, including the First President, by lowering the mandatory retirement age for its judges from 70 to 65 years, contravenes international human rights law and standards, including the right to a fair hearing.
The measure is contrary to the principle of the security of tenure of judges and therefore to the independence of the judiciary, as expressed in the UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary.
In August, the Supreme Court submitted a preliminary ruling request to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) seeking its interpretation on the compliance of the measure with EU law. The Supreme Court has suspended implementation of the law pending the proceedings before the CJEU.
The European Commission has recognized the current situation as undermining “the principle of judicial independence, including the irremovability of judges” and has triggered a procedure under Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union that could ultimately lead to suspension of Poland’s EU voting rights.
The Commission has also launched infringement proceedings against Poland in respect of the law on the Supreme Court.
An ICJ letter of 11 July 2018, signed by 22 senior judges from all regions of the world, urged the Polish government to act immediately to reinstate the forcibly retired judges in office.
Sep 14, 2018 | News
On 14 September 2018, the ICJ joined 67 other international and Guatemalan civil society organizations in a letter to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, to express grave concern about recent developments to curtail anti-impunity efforts in the country.
These include President Jimmy Morales’ decision on 31 August 2018 not to extend the mandate of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG); the Guatemalan authorities’ subsequent decision on 4 September 2018 to prohibit the re-entry into the country of the CICIG’s Commissioner Iván Velásquez; and judicial reforms adopted by Congress on 6 September 2018 that threaten to undermine the independence of the judiciary and the function of the Constitutional Court judges and the office of the Human Rights Ombudsman.
The signatories welcomed the High Commissioner’s critical reference of these developments in her opening remarks to the 39th session of the Human Rights Council.
They asked that the High Commissioner give continued support in the fight against corruption and impunity in Guatemala and called on her to press the Guatemalan authorities to adopt necessary measures to facilitate compliance with the mandate of the CICIG under the terms of the Agreement signed between Guatemala and the United Nations.
The letter is available here (in Spanish): Guatemala-Letter to Michelle Bachelet-News-2018-SPA
Sep 11, 2018 | Events, News
The ICJ will organize this side event, in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of the Netherlands, at the Human Rights Council on Tuesday 18 September 2018 from 15:30 – 16.30 in Room XXII of the Palais des Nations.
Particularly when crimes under international law are perpetrated on a large scale in situations of crisis, there is an urgent need to preserve evidence for use in eventual criminal proceedings, whether at the International Criminal Court or other national or international tribunals
Too frequently, obstacles prevent immediate direct recourse to international courts and prosecutors. One response has been the creation of mechanisms to collect and preserve the evidence in the meantime. Examples include the International Independent and Impartial Mechanism (IIIM) for Syria, and the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.
At the current session of the Human Rights Council, the Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar has called for establishment of an IIIM pending referral to the ICC or an ad hoc tribunal.
The various options for accountability, and how to take these and related initiatives forward will be discussed.
Opening Remarks:
Ambassador Monique T.G. van Daalen, Permanent Mission of the Netherlands
Moderator:
Saman Zia-Zarifi, Secretary General, International Commission of Jurists
Panelists:
- Catherine Marchi-Uhel, Head, International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) for Syria
- Yasmin Sooka, Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan
- Sanji Monageng, former Judge/Vice-President of the ICC, and Commissioner of the ICJ
- Stephen Rapp, Chair, Commission for International Justice & Accountability (CIJA), Distinguished
Fellow, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and former United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice
- Kingsley Abbott, ICJ Senior Legal Adviser (Global Accountability), formerly with the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon
Universal-ICJ-NL-Side event-News-events-2018-ENG (flyer of the event in PDF)
Sep 10, 2018 | Events, News
The ICJ will host the side event “Gross human rights violations in Myanmar: options for international criminal accountability” at the Human Rights Council on Thursday 13 September 2018 from 12:00 – 13.00 in Room XXVII of the Palais des Nations.
It is organized by the ICJ, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in cooperation with ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).
The issues of documenting violations, possible evidence-gathering mechanisms and the role of the International Criminal Court will be discussed.
Speakers:
- Justice Sanji Mmasenono Monageng, Commissioner of the ICJ and former judge of the International Criminal Court
- Param-Preet Singh, Associate Director of the International Justice Program, Human Rights Watch
- Laura Haigh, Myanmar Researchers, Amnesty International
Moderator:
Saman Zia-Zarifi, Secretary General, International Commission of Jurists
Myanmar side event 13 Sept flyer (flyer of the event in PDF)
Sep 10, 2018 | News
Today, the ICJ condemned the mass convictions of some 739 defendants, 75 of whom were sentenced to death, by the Cairo Criminal Court, in connection with a sit-in protest at Raba’a Al Adaweyya square in August 2013.
The ICJ deplored that the convictions had followed a grossly unfair trial and called on the Egyptian authorities, including the prosecutorial authorities, to take immediate steps to quash them.
The ICJ said that as an immediate matter the death sentences, issued in contravention of Egypt’s international legal obligations, must be vacated.
In addition to the death sentences, another 658 individuals were sentenced either to life imprisonment or to five to 15 years’ imprisonment, including journalists and others monitoring the sit in, many of them in high security facilities.
The accused were convicted of offences including “killing police officers,” “taking part in an illegal assembly,” “joining an illegal group,” and “vandalism and other acts of violence” following dispersal of a sit-in protest at Raba’a square.
The convictions follow a grossly unfair trial in which rights of the accused to a presumption of innocence and to legal counsel, among others, were violated and many accused were arbitrarily detained.
“The trial, with its industrial-scale convictions and blatant disregard of basic fair trial guarantees, is yet another example of how Egypt’s judiciary is being used by the military and the executive to crush freedom of expression, assembly, and association; silence any and all critical voices, and intimidate witnesses of human rights violations,” said Said Benarbia, Director of the ICJ’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
The trial was marred by a litany of fair trial violations. A presumption in favour of pre-trial detention was routinely applied.
Of the 739 defendants tried, all 320 arrested were held in pre-trial detention for more than five years, protestors and protest monitors alike.
For example, photo journalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, known as “Shawkan”, was arrested while covering the Raba’a dispersal and was in pre-trial detention throughout the trial.
The Cairo Criminal Court convicted the defendants without making individual findings of guilt or relying on credible evidence, violating the presumption of innocence.
Four hundred and nineteen defendants were tried in absentia—a number of whom may have been sentenced to death—without the opportunity to mount a meaningful defence.
Charges such as “joining an illegal group” were also blatantly unfounded insofar as they targeted journalists and others reporting on the sit in.
“The convictions are unreliable and ought to be quashed. Those convicted solely for the legitimate and peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly must be immediately and unconditionally released,” added Benarbia.
The ICJ opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances as a violation of the right to life and a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
It has previously called on Egypt to respect repeated Resolutions by the UN General Assembly for all retentionist States to impose an immediate moratorium on the death penalty with a view to abolition.
Under international standards, proceedings in death penalty cases must conform to the highest standards of judicial independence, competence and impartiality, and must strictly comply with all fair trial rights.
The ICJ previously documented how the Egyptian Judiciary has consistently failed to conform to these standards, and has instead been using the administration of justice as a tool of repression.
The ICJ has underscored that International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a party, protects the rights to liberty, to a fair trial, to life, to freedom of expression, to freedom of assembly, and to an effective remedy against violations of human rights.
The ICJ is particularly concerned that impunity continues to prevail over the gross human rights violations committed by armed and security forces in the course of the dispersal.
In this regard, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet noted the contrast between Saturday’s decision and Egypt’s adoption of Law 161(2018) in July, which effectively immunized security forces from prosecution for offences committed between 3 July 2013, the date of the military coup, and January 2016.
The High Commissioner further warned that “justice must apply to all” and that immunizing security personnel by such a law only “promotes impunity, and undermines the faith of the Egyptian people in the Government’s capacity to deliver justice for all.”
“It is a measure of the absolute subordination of the judiciary to the will of the military and executive that not a single person has been held accountable for the unlawful killings of hundreds of protesters, and that those arrested and prosecuted in the context of the dispersal are convicted and sentenced to death and cumulatively thousands of years’ of imprisonment,” Benarbia said.
Egypt-Rabaa Ruling-News-webstory-2018-ENG (full text, PDF)
