DUSHANBE, May 5, Asia-Plus — Independence of the judiciary in Tajikistan and compliance with international standards and OSCE commitments were the focus of a May 5 roundtable meeting at Tajik Center for Strategic Studies in Dushnabe staged by the OSCE Centre in Dushanbe and the National Association of Political Scientists of Tajikistan.
Participants at the meeting discussed amendments to the Civil, Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes, strengthening the independence of the Council of Justice, establishing an Ombudsman institution, and training judges on international human rights standards, in particular fair trials and the rule of law.
Nurmahmad Khalilov, Director of the Center for Human Rights, telling the meeting noted that the Center conducted a monitoring of 46 trials in courts of Dushanbe and Khujand in May-December last year. According to him, the Center’s monitoring has recorded instances of violation of international legal standards during those trials. “13 of 70 defendants in those trials denied their previous confessions, saying that their confessions had been extracted under psychological and physical pressures, tortures during the preliminary investigations,” Mr. Khalilov said, noting that only in two cases judges responded to those statements.
Andrey Shugurov, Deputy Head of the OSCE Centre in Dushnabe, telling the meeting said, “The OSCE Centre in Dushanbe welcomes the amendments, passed in recent years, to the Civil, Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes, as well as the extension of judges” tenures and the ratification of all major international human rights treaties by Tajikistan.” “At the same time, negative trends persist and need to be urgently addressed, including the continuing excessive role of prosecutors in court decisions, corruption in the judiciary and little knowledge of international human rights standards among judges.”
Nigina Bahriyeva, Director of the Tajik NGO Bureau on Human Rights and Rule of Law, added: “Tajikistan is fortunate to have a framework of recommendations coming out of the United Nations” Human Rights Committee and Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers. In particular, last year”s Committee”s concluding observations on Tajikistan as well as the visit of the Special Rapporteur to the country indicated that critical issues remain to be improved on the basis of these bodies” recommendations.”
The meeting participants will draft recommendations for the Government on ways to improve independence of the judiciary.
The event is part of the project “Sensitization campaign on the compliance of the Tajik justice system with international human rights standards,” being implemented by the OSCE Centre in Dushanbe in 2006.
