Farid Ershad/ Unsplash / 2021 November 23, 2021 On Tuesday, November 23, 2021, fifty armed Taliban took control of the Afghanistan Independent Bars Association (AIBA) by force. During their violent intrusion, they ordered the verification of all contracts signed by the Bar Association with foreigners. The Taliban also seized funds belonging to the 2,500 lawyers who finance the Bar Association. These actions seriously jeopardize the integrity of the Bar Association and professional secrecy. AIBA is one of the only bar associations in the world that has a quota of women on all executive committees and at least one vice president must be a woman. At this time, it is unclear what impact the “nationalization” of the Afghanistan Bar Association will have specifically on women leaders of the Bar Association. This attack against the bar is part of the process of deconstruction of the rule of law in Afghanistan since the seizure of power by the Taliban on August 15, 2021, and follows in particular the takeover of the Ministry of Justice on access to the profession. Indeed, from now on, all lawyers in the country who have a license with the AIBA will have to acquire a new license from […]

[Unsplash / Mathias P.R. Reding / May 2020]. The Observatory has sent a letter to the authorities of France, Italy, Switzerland and Spain expressing its opposition to the candidacy of Mr. Herminio “Harry” Roque Jr. to the United Nations International Law Commission. As an official spokesperson for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who is currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity for extrajudicial killings and other violations in his so-called “war on drugs”, Mr. Roque has publicly defended and justified attacks on human rights, justice, due process and the rule of law. Access the full document HERE.

[Flickr / Alexander Schimmeck 2018] Lawyers of Acción Penal have been forced to continue their work from exile after being under constant attack for their legal defence of political prisoners. Acción Penal is an association created by criminal lawyers, all of whom previously worked as prosecutors in the Nicaraguan Public Ministry. This association was created in February 2019 to respond to the need for legal defence of political prisoners and legal assistance to victims of repression, in the context of the social and political crisis affecting Nicaragua. Acción Penal is composed of a permanent team of three lawyers who work occasionally with three other associate lawyers. The members of Acción Penal work to assist persons deprived of their liberty who are protesting for the respect of human rights in Nicaragua. In this way they promote access to free and quality legal defence, the creation of specialised documentation recording human rights violations, as well as the filing of legal actions against the Nicaraguan state for these violations. Acción Penal’s legal team has been working in a hostile context when dealing with legal issues related to the social and political crisis of April 2018. State repression has increased in the context of […]

14th of October 2021 The OIAD has addressed an open letter to the Minister of Justice The Russian Federation to assert the concern for the safety and independence of the Lawyer Ivan Pavlov. Access the full document HERE.

From 15 to 20 September 2021, an international delegation of lawyers representing several organisations, including the OIAD, returned to Turkey in the course of a fact-finding mission to visit imprisoned lawyers and attend their trials. This mission followed the last trial monitoring mission, carried out in April 2021, which concerned the OCH (Law Office for the People) and CHD I (Association of Progressive Lawyers) cases, involving lawyers who are members of human rights associations. The arrest and imprisonment of these lawyers has already been denounced by the OIAD and many international actors for violating the principles of a fair trial, and the rights of the defence. For more details, see the mission report recently published by the OIAD. On September 15, 2021, Jacopo Ograbek, mandated by the OIAD, attended the hearing of lawyers Selçuk Kozağaçlı and Barkın Timtik, who have been in pre-trial detention for 5 years for, among other things, “belonging to a terrorist organization”. They are being tried by the Istanbul Criminal Court n°18, after a review by the Turkish Court of Cassation which decided to overturn the appealed judgment. They are appearing in two cases that were irregularly joined following the decision of the Court of Cassation. […]