WG on complaint procedure - Feb. 14th - YS

Report of the meeting of the 14th of February 2007, 13h- 18h:
Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review Mechanisms
of the Human Rights Council

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss about the complaint procedure on the basis of the 1503 process. Several points have been exanimate.

Points 5 and 6 examination:

The US representative proposed that even if the first working group (working group on communications) should conclude to admissibility of the complaint, the second working group (working group on situations) should reject it if criteria are not fulfilled.
China made a proposition on the two working group’s functions: the first should only check complaint admissibility and should reject manifestly ill-founded ones. The second should examine content of the complaint and make proposals to HRC.
In a nutshell, some kind of pre-screening by the working group on communications should precede an examination by the working group on situations.
Concerning the composition of the working groups, whole delegations agreed it should be geographically representative of the five regional groups. The representative of Morocco added that gender balance should be observed. Most of the delegations agreed for a 3 year term renewable only once. But, the matter of experts’ designation had shown some divergences. While a few delegations consider members should be elected among members of the former sub-commission (Pakistan on behalf of OCI, Malaysia…), most of the others thought they should be nominated by HRC respecting each regional group (Germany in the name of EU, Russia…).
UK proposed that a member should not be able to make a decision in a case whether country of origin or country of residence of the above-mentioned member is involved. In the same way, the representative of Venezuela thought that working groups should have the possibility to declare one of their member incompetent in case of obvious partiality.

Points 7, 8 and 9 examination:

Whole delegations agreed for an annual session of the council. However, concerning the working groups, most of the delegations thought it should to meet more often that the council.
Several delegations (China, Malaysia, Mexico…) felt that the current system is not victim-oriented enough. According to them, complainants should be informed as soon as the communication has been transmitting to the office.
Furthermore, they thought that complainants and the government concerned should be informed of each step of the process, that is to say admissibility, content examination and HRC resolution.
Then, the representative of Algeria asked if it could be possible for the secretary to acknowledge the whole complaints. He added information to the complainant should be transmitting in the end of the process to ensure confidentiality.
Lastly, the secretary answered each complaint is acknowledged expect manifestly ill-founded communications and petitions. In the latter case, secretary had to choose a couple of them for acknowledgment.