Committee against Torture discusses reports on Follow-up to implementation of recommendations on reprisals

Committee against Torture

12 August 2015

The Committee against Torture met in public this afternoon to hear reports from the Rapporteurs on follow-up to implementation of recommendations and on reprisals against persons cooperating with the Committee.

Jens Modvig, Committee Member and Rapporteur on follow-up in the fifty-fifth session, said that in 2003, the Committee had established a follow-up procedure on the periodic State party reporting according to article 19 in the Convention.  The procedure was limited to a few selected recommendations among all the recommendations in the concluding observations.  The Committee had decided that the procedure should focus on the following issues: access to the fundamental legal safeguards in connection with deprivation of liberty; prompt, impartial and effective investigations of allegations of torture and ill-treatment; prosecution of persons accused of acts of torture, and punishment if found guilty; and redress to the victims of torture and ill-treatment.

The Committee had also decided to limit the number of recommendations identified for follow-up to four.  In case a State party did not comply with the one-year follow-up report, the issues selected for follow-up were automatically presented to the State party when the subsequent periodic report was due.  The overall reporting compliance, including the fiftieth to fifty-second sessions, stood at 72 per cent; the reporting compliance was stable or even increasing, said Mr. Modvig.  New follow-up guidelines adopted at the current session included use of an assessment system for the Committee’s analysis of the State party follow-up reports, invitation to State parties to provide a voluntary plan for the implementation of all or some of the recommendations in the concluding observations, and consolidating the role of civil society organizations and national human rights institutions in monitoring of and supporting the implementation.  The Committee was committed to new and stronger guidelines as an important tool to strengthen, to the degree possible, the implementation of the Convention.

In the ensuing discussion, Experts expressed appreciation for the thoroughness of the report.  Questions were raised on the countries whose follow-up reports were very severely overdue, and the geographic distribution of such countries.  Mr. Modvig’s impressions were that States parties which had problems complying with periodic reporting were the same ones having problems with follow-up reporting.  Regarding geographic distribution, it was noted that the rate of compliance was not that high in the African region.  A second reminder could come in the form of requests for a meeting. 

The report was then unanimously approved.

George Tugushi, Committee Member and Rapporteur on reprisals, said that reprisals,  which were a very worrisome issue, were now followed in a more systemic and organized manner.  The Committee had already handled several reprisals of victims, some of whom had come personally and others had sent their cases.  The latest case had come from Bahrain; the person in question remained under charges, but had been pardoned by the King because of health reasons.  Not much had happened with regard to the closure of a non-governmental organization in Russia.  There was definitely room for more improvement and progress. 

Alessio Bruni, Committee Member and Rapporteur on reprisals, stated that the guidelines of the Committee, once adopted, would focus on receipt and handling of the allegations of reprisals.  The focus would be on the technical side of the procedure.  The San Jose Guidelines on reprisals, adopted in June 2015, contained basic principles to guide each treaty body on this issue; each treaty body would develop technically what was contained in the general San Jose Guidelines.  On article 20, the Committee was now developing guidelines for handling certain cases of reprisals.  On article 22, there had been some cases, which had not been reprisals as such, but rather threats of reprisals, and were still under the confidential procedure.  Whenever a reprisal or a threat might be imposed, which could lead to irreparable damage to the person and those related to him, in interim measures the Committee requested the State party to refrain from such steps.  Methodology was being developed to define steps the State party should take at every stage with the view of avoiding reprisals. 

On the question on whether any cases of reprisals had been prevented or interrupted through the Committee’s actions, Mr. Tugushi said that one case from Cyprus was a good example of reprisal prevention.  In some other cases, there had been room for prevention, but there had been no will to stop reprisals.  Most of the reprisals which had come to the attention of the Committee had arrived through civil society.  Involvement by the Committee had an added value regardless of whether a reprisal was prevented or not.  Mr. Bruni added that modern technology was helping share concerns on reprisals faster.  He provided another example of a person who had been intimidated by a public official, which had stopped soon after an intervention by the Committee.   Regarding the definition of reprisals, Mr. Bruni opined that a deliberate omission could also count as a reprisal.  An Expert emphasized the importance of awareness-raising and expressed concern that not enough victims were covered by protection from reprisals or knew about the possibility of addressing the Committee. 

The Committee will next meet in public on Friday, 14 August at 10 a.m. to adopt the programme of work for future sessions and close the fifty-fifth session.

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