The Human Rights Council this morning held an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, and started an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.
Margaret Satterthwaite, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, said that in her first report to the Human Rights Council, she had set out some of the most important contemporary challenges confronting the independence of judges and lawyers. The independence of judges and lawyers was a bedrock foundation on which the protection of all other human rights rested. A judge who feared dismissal or harassment by the Government would struggle to find that the State committed acts of torture, or that the arrest and harassment of those who protested against the Government was a violation of the right of peaceful assembly. Judges who were partial could not constitute a bulwark against discrimination.