Joint Civil Society Petition to the International Association of Prosecutors

Dear members of the IAPExecutive Committee and the Senate,

The undersignedorganisations appeal to you to take steps to ensure prosecutors comply with theStandards of Professional Responsibilityand Statement of the Essential Duties and Rights of Prosecutors[1].

By fighting crime ina professional and legal manner, prosecutors play an essential role inprotecting the rights and freedoms of the inhabitants of the country they areserving. We recognise the commitment and sacrifice that in many cases arerequired from prosecutors to fulfil this role in a proper manner.

At the same time, weobserve situations in which prosecutors are involved in procedures andprosecutions that violate basic rights laid down in the Universal Declarationof Human Rights and subsequent international covenants, conventions and otherinstruments, to which the Standards ofProfessional Responsibility and Statement of the Essential Duties and Rights ofProsecutors[2]as well as national professional ethical standards refer.

A particularly worryingdevelopment is the increase in the prosecution of Human Rights Defenders(persons and organisations covered by the 1998 UN Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups andOrgans of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rightsand Fundamental Freedoms[3]).The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in 2013 reported that shehad seen “the space for civil society and defenders visibly shrink in certainregions of the world”, accompanied by “the consolidation of more sophisticatedforms of silencing of their voices and impeding their work, including theapplication of legal and administrative provisions or the misuse of thejudicial system to criminalise and stigmatise their activities.”[4]

The precise role ofprosecution services and individual prosecutors in these practices depends onthe design of the judiciary system in the respective countries, but in most ifnot all cases they will be in direct violation of key provisions of the Standards of Professional Responsibility andStatement of the Essential Duties and Rights of Prosecutors. TheInternational Association of Prosecutors should in our view urgently developprocedures to address this gap between professional ethics and practice[5].

Supporting organisations

Netherlands Helsinki Committee,The Hague

Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Warsaw

International Commission of Jurists, Geneva

Amnesty International the Netherlands, Amsterdam

Advocacy Advisory Panel, Kyiv

Article 19, London
Association Humanrights.ch, Bern


Association of Ukrainian Human Rights Monitors on LawEnforcement, Kyiv


Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House in exile,Vilnius


Belarusian Helsinki Committee, Minsk


Bir-Duino Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek


Center for Civil Liberties, Kyiv


Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights,Moscow


Civil Rights Defenders, Stockholm


Civil Society Institute, Yerevan


Committee for Prevention of Torture, Nizhny Novgorod


Free Press Unlimited, Amsterdam


Front Line Defenders, Dublin


Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict


Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor, Yerevan


Helsinki Committee of Armenia, Yerevan


Human Rights Center Georgia, Tbilisi


Human Rights Center Azerbaijan, Baku


Human Rights Club, Baku


Human Rights Embassy, Chisinau


Human Rights House Foundation, Oslo


Human Rights House, Zagreb


Human Rights Information Center, Kyiv


Human Rights Monitoring Institute, Vilnius


India Committee of the Netherlands, Utrecht


International Center on Conflict and Negotiation,Tbilisi


International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), in theframework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

International Partnership for Human Rights, Brussels


International Youth Human Rights Movement
Justice andPeace Netherlands, The Hague


Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Ruleof Law, Almaty


Kharkiv Regional Foundation Public Alternative, Kharkiv


Kosova Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims,Prishtina


Lawyers for Lawyers, Amsterdam


Moscow Helsinki Group, Moscow


Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), UtrechtUniversity, Utrecht


Netherlands Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (NJCM),Leiden


Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Oslo


People in Need, Prague


Platform London, London


Promo-LEX Association, Chisinau


Public Association Dignity, Astana


Public Foundation Voice of Freedom, Bishkek


Public Verdict Foundation, Moscow


Regional Center for Strategic Studies, Baku/ Tbilisi


Swiss Helsinki Association, Lenzburg


World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), in theframework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Memo on the Role of the IAP in Upholding Compliance ofProsecutors with Professional Standards

The Hague, 20 August 2016

Following measuresare suggested as a possible model to uphold compliance of the IAP members withthe Standards of ProfessionalResponsibility and Statement of the Essential Duties and Rights of Prosecutors:

- To initiate a dialogue in the IAP on theintroduction of a transparent monitoring and reporting cycle or auditprocedures to review performance of existing institutional/ country membersagainst the standards to which they have committed when joining the IAP;

- To introduce a complaint mechanism whenactions of individual IAP members are concerned, accessible to members of thepublic affected by their actions, as well as human rights groups and civilsociety organisations;

- To establish a provisional or “on-holdmembership” status for IAP members that have been proven to fail to live up tohuman rights obligations, embedded in the IAP membership commitments;

- To open up channels of communication andinformation-sharing with civil society organisations, including throughproviding a possibility of reporting for coalitions of NGOs during the IAPannual conferences, as well as through an “urgent appeal” procedure to the IAPExecutive Committee in situations where the IAP members can play a role inpreventing grave human rights abuse;

- To initiate a special interest group orcommittee within the IAP focusing on challenges and responses in dealing withprosecution of Human Rights Defenders, protected by international standards,and other serious human rights violations.

Netherlands Helsinki Committee

Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights

[1] Standards of Professional Responsibility and Statementof the Essential Duties and Rights of Prosecutors adopted by theInternational Association of Prosecutors on 23 April 1999.

[2] Most situations relate to the right to a fair trial (Article14 of the International Covenant on Civiland Political Rights) and the right to freedom from torture including the prohibitionof the use in any proceedings of statements made as a result of torture(Article 15, Convention against Tortureand Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment). Additionally,obligations that are often neglected include refusal to use evidence reasonablybelieved to have been obtained through recourse to unlawful methods that constitutea human rights violation, as well as the duty to investigate and prosecutehuman rights violations by public officials, as per Guidelines 16 and 15 of theUN Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors Adopted by the Eighth United NationsCongress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Havana,Cuba, 27 August to 7 September 1990.

[3] The UN Declarationon the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society toPromote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and FundamentalFreedoms adopted by General Assembly resolution 53/144 of 9 December 1998(“the Declaration on Human RightsDefenders”). See also the OSCEGuidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders.

[4] Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of HumanRights Defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, presented at the Human Rights Council Twenty-fifthsession, 23 December 2013, A/HRC/25/55. See also: UN Human Rights Council, Protectinghuman rights defenders: resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council, 12 April2013, A/HRC/RES/22/6 and UN Human Rights Council, Promotion and protectionof all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, includingthe right to development, 21 March 2016, A/HRC/31/L.28.

[5] See appended Memo onthe Role of the IAP in Upholding Compliance of Prosecutors with Professional Standards.