International Council of the ISHR discussed further development of the project “Monitoring of the observance of the right to a fair trial”

On 7 and 8 of April, the International Council of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) met in Bonn, Germany. The event was attended by the heads of the national sections of  ISHR from 17 countries. In addition to annual reports on the activities of national sections and the work of the organization’s president, this year the members of the council decided to expand our organization in two more countries. The international network of ISHR has increased by two organizations: from Spain and Iraq.

One of the topics of discussion was the report on the results of the pilot project “Monitoring of the observance of the right to a fair trial in Ukraine in 2017”. Representatives of the Ukrainian Section acquainted colleagues with cases of violations of the right to a fair trial in Ukraine and noted negative trends in this area. Human rights defenders discussed the monitoring format, which includes visits to court hearings; preparation of reports on the progress of trials and their publication on the international Internet resource of ISHR humanrights-online.org; as well as the publication of the annual report with the results of monitoring for 2017.

Representatives of various national sections supported the idea of monitoring and stated their readiness to get involved in this work so that in 2018 the project would become international. In the near future, it is planned to hold consultations with experts in the field of international and European law from Germany and other European countries, as well as launching similar monitoring in several states. Human rights defenders agreed to facilitate the dissemination of information on monitoring; it is planned to enhance the work on the development of the Internet site used to publish reports on monitoring. This work will allow bringing the project to a new qualitative and quantitative level, deepening the interaction of human rights defenders and lawyers from the Council of Europe countries and expanding the geography of the project.

The results of the pilot project “Monitoring the observance of the right to a fair trial in Ukraine for 2017” are available here.