(London, January 24, 2000) -- Human Rights Watch has joined with five
allied organizations to seek a judicial order preventing the British
Home Secretary from releasing Augusto Pinochet without certain basic
steps of procedural fairness.
The application seeks an independent examination of the medical basis
for any decision regarding the former Chilean dictator's fitness to
stand trial. Home Secretary Jack Straw had been expected to announce his
decision in the next few days.
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"A matter of such tremendous importance deserves more than just a
rushed, closed-door decision. If Secretary Straw does not permit public,
adversarial proceedings, we hope the courts will order such a hearing."
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Kenneth Roth
Executive Director of Human Rights Watch
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"A matter of such tremendous importance deserves more than just a
rushed, closed-door decision," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of
Human Rights Watch. "If Secretary Straw does not permit public,
adversarial proceedings, we hope the courts will order such a hearing."
Human Rights Watch objects on three main grounds to the procedure used
so far to assess Pinochet's fitness to stand trial:
§ First, the medical examination was cursory and performed by
non-specialists. There was no old-age psychiatrist among the doctors
examining Pinochet. The examination consisted of a one-shot evaluation
in hospital conditions rather than an assessment over time in Pinochet's
temporary home. Two of the four doctors did not even speak Spanish.
Under these conditions, the examining doctors could easily have misread
temporary medical conditions, such as depression or medication-induced
effects, as permanent.
§ Second, the results of the medical examination have not been shared
with interested parties, including the four governments who have sought
Pinochet's extradition - Spain, Belgium, France and Switzerland. This
secrecy has precluded those who represent the interests of Pinochet's
victims from challenging the sufficiency of the evidence for concluding
that Pinochet is unfit to stand trial. In British criminal prosecutions,
a determination of fitness to stand trial is ordinarily made after an
adversarial proceeding in which interested parties are given access to
the relevant evidence and an opportunity to challenge it.
§ Third, there has been no public hearing on this matter of vital public
interest. Of particular concern is whether the evidence shows not merely
that Pinochet is a sick, old man - a fate to which many of Pinochet's
victims would have gladly aspired - but, as British law requires, that
he is incapable of understanding the proceedings against him and of
assisting in his own defense.
These concerns are described in the "application for permission to apply
for judicial review," which will be filed today or tomorrow in the
British High Court of Justice. The five allied organizations joining
Human Rights Watch in filing this application are Amnesty International,
The Redress Trust, The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of
Torture, The Association of the Relatives of Disappeared Persons, and
Justicia.
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