"Legislators must defend the rights of their colleagues"

At its last session, in July 2007, the IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians examined 33 public cases concerning 198 legislators in Bangladesh, Belarus, Burundi, Cambodia, Colombia, Ecuador, Eritrea, Honduras, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Zimbabwe. Its new President, Canadian Senator Sharon Carstairs, who took the chair in June, and its new Vice-President, Mexican Senator Rosario Green, intend to give more visibility to the work of this body, composed of legislators from different regions of the world.

As Senator Carstairs explained to The World of Parliaments, the Committee faces two major problems. "It has not received enough media attention, so awareness about our work is limited. And it does not receive enough prominence within the IPU itself. While Members pay some attention to the report when it is presented, there is little follow-up in many countries".

Senator Carstairs wants IPU Members to understand that "if we are to have real success in bringing change then everyone has to be part of the solution. It cannot just be the commitment of the five people who sit on the Committee".

Part of the visibility problem can be attributed to the rules of the Committee, which works in camera and deals with public but also confidential cases. "There are legitimate reasons to keep some of our cases confidential, but at least half of the cases we deal with are public. Therefore we have to focus on the public dimension, present cases to the media to point out success stories but at the same time highlight cases where we don't have the same success and explain why we need help". Senator Carstairs proposes that when the Committee presents its report to the Governing Council at IPU Assemblies, the Committee's five members should briefly provide information on the cases and show pictures, "so that the cases become living human beings to the Assembly delegates. Showing pictures on the screen of legislators who have allegedly been victims of human rights violations is an important means of capturing the audience's attention and making it clear to delegates and journalists that the Committee's report is not a dull, 55-page document but deals with people like them, who have disappeared, found themselves in jail, or been tortured".

Mexican Senator Rosario Green supports this approach. "We can provide a lot of information. Take the case of Ecuador for example. We have a DVD showing the harassment against legislators or showing the police doing nothing, and just watching. We have to convey our hope that this will not happen again. No parliamentarian can be assured of being safe from harassment. The world changes, and any legislator may at some point need the IPU. In order for the IPU to be able to deliver, parliamentarians have to make it stronger".

Senator Green stresses that neighbouring countries must act "to help the Committee help their fellow parliamentarians. I am sure that legislators from Peru or Chile are closer to their counterparts in Ecuador, for instance, than we are, so we have to coach them and make them care about what is happening. Sometimes their voices are stronger than ours. We have more and more democracies in the world and we have to make sure that our institutions are strong enough to take a stand when the human rights of parliamentarians are violated". While acknowledging that the Committee has faced some delicate situations she said that "sometimes we look like a bureaucratic body that goes so many times over the same files without producing anything but the hope that we will be heard. We should begin doing what we can as legislators to change things a little. We should not be weak: we are an independent branch of government and should not be afraid of executive branch administrations. We have to be strong when we deal with the human rights of people in prison and take a stand to defend the right of our colleagues".

	LATIN AMERICA Parliaments need to do more in the fields of justice and equality At a meeting jointly organized by the IPU and the Chamber of Deputies of Bolivia held on 8 and 9 June in La Paz, Bolivia, some 150 participants from Latin America discussed successes and failures in pursuing national reconciliation. They exchanged views on whether democracies have brought justice for former victims and to those who have been excluded from society as a result of poverty or discrimination. Participants were highly critical in this regard and concluded that the democracies that had taken root had not put a stop to the social and economic injustice that had been the causes of conflict and human rights violations during the era of dictatorships in Latin America. They stressed the urgency of strengthening the democratization process in the region by better redistributing wealth, examining and changing the role of the elite and expanding the rights of civil society and social movements and their participation in decision making. Parliament has been a key actor in this regard, not only in the area of lawmaking, but more importantly, in exercising its oversight functions and in keeping the memory of a violent and difficult past alive among new generations. It has also been important to enhance the positive perception of the parliamentary institution so as to better meet these challenges.

	"As a victim of oppression I say that we must stand up" One of the success stories of the IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians was a case in the Philippines concerning six members of the House of Representatives accused of rebellion. One of them, Mr. Crispin Beltran, was in detention in April this year when the IPU sent a mission to Manila to gather first-hand information on the case. The delegation concluded that the charges brought against the parliamentarians concerned were politically motivated, that Mr. Beltran's detention was arbitrary and that he should be released. One week before the Committee's July session in Geneva the Supreme Court of the Philippines dismissed the charges against the parliamentarians concerned, and few days later, Mr. Beltran was released. Senator Aquilino Pimental of the Philippines is a member of the Committee and can testify to the importance of its work. "The Committee plays a vital role in making the world aware of our universally shared concern about respect for the human rights of legislators. Having been a victim of oppression in my country, under Mr. Marcos' martial law, I empathize with legislators—and all individuals - whose human rights have been abused. Members of the IPU now know there is a mechanism for speaking out for the rights of legislators. When you are directly oppressed, it means a lot to know you're not alone in the struggle. It is very important for us as legislators to understand and stand up for human rights - our own as well as others."