KHUJAND, October 10, 2011, Asia-Plus — Issues related to access of lawyers to their clients and torture victims to legal support were disused at a roundtable that took place in Khujand, the capital of Sughd province on October 7.
Organized by the Human rights Center under support of the OSCE Office in Tajikistan, the meeting focused on the access of victims of torture to legal support, Parvina Navrouzova, representative of the Human Rights Center also coordinator of the torture prevention project in Tajikistan, said.
According to her, they are regularly documenting cases of use of torture in Dushanbe, Sughd and Khatlon provinces as well as in Gorno Badakhshan.
“The project has worked since March this year and to-date, we have registered several complaints by torture victims or their relatives in the northern Sughd province and in Dushanbe,” said Navrouzova, “It has been established that torture is used practically from the moment of detention and the right of a lawyer to have access to his client is violated. Use of torture frequently leads to fatal outcome and it is impossible to prove many of these cases.”
“We have arranged a number of consultative meetings with practicing defense lawyers in Sughd and Khatlon provinces to discuss the main problems lawyers are faced while defending victims of torture,” she added.
The lawyers, in particular, noted that it was impossible to establish facts of use of torture and ensure the opportune carrying out of forensic medical examination because national mechanisms are not enough efficient for the opportune response to such facts. The lawyers were unanimous in their opinion that sometimes the reason for use of torture is insufficient legal competence of law enforcement officers. They consider that it is necessary to make amendments to the country’s Criminal Procedure Code that would provide for the procedure of consideration by judges of oral and written complaints by defendants about use of torture against them during the preliminary investigation.
The other problem is lack of independent forensic medical examination, because physicians working with the pretrial detention facilities frequently deny the facts of use of torture and fully support the investigation bodies.
Participants in those meetings, in particular, offered establishment of separate investigative committee, putting the medical component of the pretrial detention facilities under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, establishment of independent center for forensic medical examination, and compulsory carrying out of forensic medical examination straight after detention in the presence of defense lawyer.
