By Hadi Fornaji
Tripoli, 4 May 2013:
Congress should not allow itself to be railroaded into making very bad laws because groups of . . .[restrict]armed men are demanding it, said Human Rights Watch today, on the eve of the GNC’s vote on the Political Isolation Law.
“Libya’s long-term prospects for peace and security will be seriously diminished if the congress agrees to nod through this law” said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East and North Africa director.
HRW maintained that the proposed legislation was too sweeping and too vague, adding that its concerns were the greater because the General National Congress on 9 April amended the provisional constitution, to rule out any review of the law by the Supreme Court.
“Libyans have a right to expect that officials who abused their positions under Qaddafi, to commit crimes or violate human rights, will be removed and never again allowed to hold public office,” said Whitson, “But this law is far too vague – potentially barring anyone who ever worked for the authorities during the four decades of Qaddafi’s rule.”
HRW said that although the draft law ensured the right to appeal a decision by the Integrity Commission, which will be renamed the High Committee to Implement the Criteria for Occupying Public Positions, “the law lacks guarantees for people subject to exclusion, of minimum due process rights such as the right to be heard during the hearing and the right to legal counsel.”
Said Whitson: “Libyan lawmakers should be entrenching legal safeguards to ensure that laws which violate human rights and the provisional constitution can be ruled invalid, not removing these protections to ‘immunise’ questionable draft laws against the test of judicial review.”
The proposed law would likely violate Libya’s provisional constitution and also breach the country’s international human rights obligations, HRW added.
“International law requires Libya to allow all citizens the right to hold political office without discrimination based on political associations. As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Libya is required to allow its citizens equal opportunity to participate in political life, without discrimination or “unreasonable restrictions.”
HRW added that the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, also ratified by Libya, requires states to ensure that every citizen has the right to participate freely in the government of their country. [/restrict]
