COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE ISSUES CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON REPORT OF GERMANY

18 May 2004



The Committee against Torture this afternoon issued its conclusions and recommendations on the third periodic report of Germany on how that country implements the provisions of the Convention against Torture.

Cited among positive developments in the report of Germany were the State party’s strengthening of institutional protection for human rights, including through the establishment of the Human Rights Committee of the Federal Parliament and the Federal Government’s submission of biennial national human rights reports to the Federal Parliament; and the State party’s passage of legislation to implement the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court which comprehensively codified crimes against international law, including torture in the context of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.

The Committee expressed concern, among other things, about the length of time taken to resolve criminal proceeding arising from allegations of ill-treatment of persons in custody of law enforcement authorities, including in particularly serious cases where death had resulted; and some allegations that criminal charges had been laid, for punitive or dissuasive purposes, by law enforcement authorities against persons who had laid charges of ill-treatment against law enforcement authorities.

Among the Committee’s recommendations were that Germany should take all appropriate measures to ensure that criminal complaints lodged against its law enforcement authorities were resolved with all possible expedition, in order to provide prompt resolution to such allegations and avoid any possible inferences of impunity, including in cases where counter-charges were alleged to have occurred. Germany should also provide the Committee with details on how many cases of extradition or removal subject to receipt of diplomatic assurances or guarantees had occurred since 11 September 2001, what the State party’s minimum contents were for such assurances or guarantees, and what measures of subsequent monitoring it had undertaken in such cases.
The Committee will reconvene in private at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 19 May, to consider information under article 20; and to examine communications under article 22 of the Convention. It is then scheduled to open its meeting to adopt lists of issues for its thirty-third session in relation to Argentina, Canada, Greece, Finland and Togo. In the afternoon, the Committee is expected to issue its conclusions and recommendations on reports of Chile and New Zealand in a pubic meeting.

Conclusions and Recommendations on Third Periodic Report of Germany

The Committee cited among positive developments in the report Germany’s strengthening of institutional protection for human rights, including through the establishment of the Human Rights Committee of the Federal Parliament and the Federal Government’s submission of biennial national human rights reports to the Federal Parliament; the establishment of the German Institute for Human Rights, a focal point of whose competence was monitoring of the domestic human rights situation; the State party’s reaffirmation of its commitment to the absolute character of the ban on exposure to torture, including through refoulement; the State party’s commitment to external scrutiny of its record under the Convention expressed by its acceptance of the Committee’s competence to hear complaints under articles 21 and 22 of the Convention; the significant improvements that had been made over the reporting period to the Frankfurt airport refugee facilities, to the applicable refugee determination processes conducted there, and the methods exercised in forcibly returning failed asylum seekers by air; and the State party’s passage of legislation to implement the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, whose legislation comprehensively codified crimes against international law, including torture in the context of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.

The Committee expressed concern, among other things, about the length of time taken to resolve criminal proceedings arising from allegations of ill-treatment of persons in custody of law enforcement authorities, including in particularly serious cases where death had resulted, such as that of Mr. Aamir Ageeb, who died in May 1999; some allegations that criminal charges had been laid, for punitive or dissuasive purposes, by law enforcement authorities against persons who laid charges of ill-treatment against law enforcement authorities; the fact that in numerous areas covered by the Convention, the State party was unable to supply statistics, or appropriately disaggregate those in its possession; and the legal controls and training provided to private security companies utilized to provide security to certain facilities at Frankfurt-am-Main international airport.

Among its recommendations, the Committee said the State party should take all appropriate measures to ensure that criminal complaints lodged against its law enforcement authorities were resolved with all possible expedition, in order to provide prompt resolution to such allegations and avoid any possible inferences of impunity, including in cases where counter-charges were alleged to have occurred; take such measures as were appropriately within its power with respect to the authorities of the Länder to ensure the adoption and general application of measures, which had proven efficacious at the federal level in improving compliance of the Convention; and comprehensively group together its criminal provisions relating to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;

The State party was also recommended to provide the Committee with details on how many cases of extradition or removal subject to receipt of diplomatic assurances or guarantees had occurred since 11 September 2001, what the State party’s minimum contents were for such assurances or guarantees and what measures of subsequent monitoring it had undertaken in such cases; offer, as a routine practice, medical examinations both before all forced removals by air and, in the event that they failed, thereafter; consider more actively making use of the Convention’s extradition mechanisms with respect to German nationals who were alleged to have engaged, or be complicit, in acts of torture abroad or in which German nationals were alleged to be victims thereof; and make all efforts to ratify the optional protocol to the Convention.