HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE ADOPTS REVISED GENERAL COMMENT ON RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL

The Human Rights Committee this morning adopted General Comment 32, a revised General Comment on article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the right to a fair trial and equality before the courts and tribunals.

Today's adopted General Comment 32 replaces General Comment 13, which the Committee had adopted in 1984, at its twenty-first session.

According to the revised General Comment to article 14, the Committee noted in particular that statements obtained under torture could not be invoked as evidence except if they were used as evidence that torture had occurred; that tribunals with faceless judges did not satisfy basic standards of fair trial and, in particular, the requirement that the tribunal had to be independent and impartial; and that appropriate measures had to be taken in order to ensure the proceedings before religious and customary law courts were limited to minor civil and criminal matters, and met the basic requirements of fair trial, among others.

In the text adopted, the Committee also said that trials of civilians by military or special courts should be exceptional, i.e., limited to cases where the State Party could show that resorting to such trials was necessary and justified by objective and serious reasons, and where with regard to the specific class of individuals and offences at issue the regular civilian courts were unable to undertake the trials.

There was a debate among the Experts on this last article and while the majority adopted it, general consensus could not be reached. Specifically, Committee Expert Abdelfattah Amor, while he agreed that such trials should be exceptional and justified, did not agree to a clause that spelled out that States parties could show this. Thus the Committee, after having adopted the General Comment, debated on how to reflect individual or dissenting opinions made by Expert on a General Comment. Committee Members commented that such a practice had never been used before for General Comments by any treaty bodies; that such an observation would undermine the strength of the General Comment itself; and that inclusion of a dissenting opinion in the General Comment would be setting a precedent whose effects where unknown. In light of all that, the dissenting Expert and the Committee agreed that the Expert's opinion would be reflected in the official record, but not indicated in the General Comment itself.

Article 14 of the Covenant aims at ensuring the proper administration of justice, and to this end guarantees a series of specific rights, including that all persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals; that in criminal or civil cases everyone has a right to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal; that everyone charged with a criminal offence shall have the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law; and that everyone convicted of a crime shall have the right to his conviction and sentence be reviewed by a higher tribunal according to law.


The Committee has so far adopted 31 General Comments to assist States parties in fulfilling their obligations under the International Covenant. The purpose of the General Comments is to make the Committee's experience available for the benefit of all States parties in order to promote their further implementation of the Covenant; to draw their attention to insufficiencies disclosed by a large number of reports; to suggest improvements in the reporting procedure; and to stimulate the activities of those States and international organizations in the promotion and protection of human rights. Those comments could also be of interest to other States, especially those preparing to become parties to the Covenant and thus to strengthen the efforts of all States in the universal promotion and protection of human rights. The general comments of all human rights treaty bodies are compiled annually in the document HRI/GEN/1/Rev.8 and Add.1.

When the Committee reconvenes in public Thursday, 26 July, at 10 a.m., it is scheduled to hear progress reports of Special Rapporteurs for Follow-up to Views and for Follow-up to Concluding Observations. It will also consider its annual report to the General Assembly.


For use of the information media; not an official record

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