Kosztolányi Pacsirtája angol fordításban

A blog profiljától teljesen eltér, de nem tudtam megállni, hogy ne linkeljem be a következőt: a New York Review of Books Quiet, Shattering, Perfect c. kritikájában mutatja be Kosztolányi Dezső Pacsirtájának angol fordítását (fordító: Aczél Richárd).

ICTR fellebbviteli tanács ítéletei a Bikindi és Nchamihigo ügyekben

A Ruandában korábban nagy népszerűségnek örvendő zenészt, az Irindiro balett-csoport korábbi igazgatóját, Simon Bikindit 2008-ban, elsőfokon népirtásra való felbújtásért (direct and public incitement to commit genocide) 15 év börtönre ítélte az ICTR III-as számú bírói tanácsa. A Byron bíró elnökölte tanács összesen egy incidenst látott bizonyítottnak (beyond a reasonable doubt standard) az ügyészség vádiratából.

Az ügyészség pusztán a kiszabott ítélet mértéke ellen (Prosecutor’s Appelant Brief, Defense Respondent’s Brief), Bikindi pedig a felmentésért fellebbezett (Defence Appelant’s Brief, Prosecutor’s respondent Brief).

Ma délelőtti ítéletével az arushai nemzetközi törvényszék fellebbviteli tanácsa minden tekintetben helybenhagyta az elsőfokú ítéletet. A fellebbviteli tanács főleg ténykérdéseket vizsgált, újdonságnak tekinthető jogi megállapítást nem tett.

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Az ICTR III-as számú tanácsa 2008-ban minden vádpontban bűnösnek találta a cyangugui helyettes ügyészt (substitut du Procureur de la République), Siméon Nchamihigot, és életfogytiglani börtönre ítélte (Fremr bíró tagja volt ennek a tanácsnak is).

De egy nem mindennapi történet végén. "Elfogása" előtt ugyanis Nchamihigo szó szerint a hatóságok orra előtt volt. Sokáig az egyik vádlott (Samuel Imanishimwe, a cyangugui katonai tábor paracsnok) ENSZ által regisztrált és fizetett alkalmazottja volt.

Másodfokon, Pocar bíró és Liu bíró különvéleményével, 3:2 arányban 40 évre mérsékelték a büntetését, ami azonban a most 51 éves Nchamihigonak gyakorlatilag életfogytiglant jelent.

A fellebbviteli tanács szerint 8 esetben volt oly mértékben hibás az ítélet (standard of review, paras 7-12.), hogy azok tekintetében fel kellett menteni a vádlottat (8, 24-26, 29, 31, 32, 33 Grounds of Appeal):

- egy esetben megalapozatlanság (lack of reasoned opinion, Ground 29),
- hat incidens tekintetében pedig azért, mert egyetlen, és a fellebbviteli tanács szerint, hiteltelen tettestárs-tanú vallomása alapján született ítélet (8, 24-26, 32, 33 Grounds of Appeal, lásd különösen paras 39-49.)
- egy esetben pedig a vádirat fogyatékossága miatt (31 Ground of Appeal).

Pocar bíró különvéleménye a fellebbviteli tanács felülvizsgálati jogkörének túllépésével foglalkozik.

Előzetes letartóztatás gyakorlata Magyarországon

A Népszabadság hosszabb cikkben ír az előzetes letartóztatás magyarországi gyakorlatáról. Arról, hogy milyen jogok illetik meg az előzetes letartóztatás alá helyezett személyt, innen tájékozódhatunk.

A Helsinki Bizottság 2004-ben megjelent jelentésének már a címe “A vétkesség véleleme - Sérelmes bánásmód és védői tevékenység az előzetes letartóztatásban lévő terheltek ellen folyó eljárásokban” is sokatmondó:

“Fogda- és börtönmegfigyelő programjának keretében 2003-ban a Magyar Helsinki Bizottság 16 rendőrségi fogdában és 10 büntetés-végrehajtási intézetben összesen 500 előzetes letartóztatottal készített kérdőíves felmérést. A vizsgálat középpontjában az előzetes letartóztatottakat a büntetőeljárás folyamán érő sérelmes bánásmód (bántalmazás, lélektani nyomásgyakorlás és egyéb túlkapások), valamint a rászorulóknak biztosított kirendelt védők tevékenysége állt”.

A témában Jován László ügyvéddel "Jogi értelemben kényszervallatás" címmel olvasható interjú a MANCS-ban.

Hírek Strasbourgból

Március 1-én két érdekes döntés is született Strasbourgban. A Demopoulos et al ügyben az ECtHR nagytanácsa megállapította:

98. The Court is therefore not persuaded that the acknowledgement of the existence of a domestic remedy runs counter to the interests of those claiming to be victims of violations. It acknowledges the strength of feeling expressed by some of the applicants. However, the argument that it would be galling to have recourse to authorities in northern Cyprus cannot be given decisive weight - against the background of conflict and hostility, similar argument might be raised in respect of any official body or authority on the Turkish mainland, or indeed by any victim of a violation who is faced with the prospect of asking for redress from a State which has been responsible for the injury suffered. The fact that applicants live outside the occupied area furnishes no reason in principle why they should not be expected to apply to a “TRNC” body where it can be demonstrated that a remedy is both practicable and normally functioning (e.g. Cyprus v. Turkey, nos. 6780/74 and 6950/75, Commission decision of 26 May 1975, D.R. 2, p. 125, at pp. 137-138, § 14; Cyprus v. Turkey, no. 8007/77, Commission decision of 10 July 1978, D.R. 13, p. 85, at p. 152, § 34). Borders, factual or legal, are not an obstacle per se to the exhaustion of domestic remedies; as a general rule applicants living outside the jurisdiction of a Contracting State are not exempted from exhausting domestic remedies within that State, practical inconveniences or understandable personal reluctance notwithstanding.

A bíróság IV. Számú tanácsa az Adamkiewicz v. Poland ügyben (egyelőre csak franciául) pedig a bírók összeférhetetlenségével (§ 6. (1) kapcsolatos eddigi gyakorlatot foglalta össze (Hauschildt, Morel, Poppe etc.)

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A romániai kárpótlási törvényekkel kapcsolatban több száz kérelem futott be Strasbourgba: a lengyel példához hasonlóan bíróság ún. pilot judgment keretében fog foglalkozni:

Over a period of almost fifteen years the European Court of Human Rights has dealt with large numbers of cases concerning the mechanism for the restitution of properties nationalised or confiscated by the communist State in Romania. More than 1,000 cases of this kind are currently pending before the Court, despite its sustained efforts to arrive at an overall settlement of the issue. In 2009 several hundred new applications of this type were lodged.

In view of the lack of significant progress on the issue in Romania, despite dozens of rulings by the Court in which it pointed to the ineffectiveness of the Romanian compensation mechanism, the Court has decided to apply the pilot-judgment procedure to these cases – via two applications which are to receive priority treatment – in the hope that this new initiative will result in steps being taken to put an end to this systemic problem.

The problem of restitution of properties nationalised or confiscated by the communist authorities in Romania

Several restitution laws have been adopted in Romania since the fall of the communist regime, based on the principle of restitution in kind or, where this is not possible, compensation. At certain times this compensation has been capped, at others not. At times it has been payable in monetary form, at times in money or shares, and since 2005 in the form of money or shares through the Proprietatea fund. However, as this fund is still not quoted on the stock exchange, its shares have no market value.

The legal uncertainty created by the plethora of legislative texts and the diverging practices of the domestic courts on this issue has resulted in delayed rulings concerning nationalised properties; to date, only a few thousand people out of the hundreds of thousands who have sought restitution have succeeded in recovering ownership of their properties or obtaining compensation.

The Court’s case-law on the restitution of properties nationalised or confiscated by the communist authorities in Romania

Since 1999 the Court has ruled on numerous occasions that the successive domestic law provisions concerning this compensation mechanism were ineffective. In its judgments in Viasu v. Romania (no. 75951/01, 9 December 2008), Katz v. Romania (no. 29739/03, 20 January 2009) and Faimblat v. Romania (no. 23066/02, 13 January 2009), the Court observed the large scale of the problem and suggested that legislative, administrative and budgetary measures be adopted in order to make the procedure established by the laws on compensation for immovable property genuinely consistent, accessible, speedy and foreseeable.

So far the Court has found over 150 violations in cases of this kind.

USA Legfelsőbb Bíróság: egy újabb Pinochet döntés előtt?

Frissítés, március 8:

A szóbeli meghallgatás jegyzőkönyve itt olvasható

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Ma délelőtt szóbeli meghallgatást tartott az USA Legfelsőbb Bírósága a Samantar v. Yousuf ügyben. A tények és az eldöntendő kérdés a következőek:

Natives of Somalia filed suit against Mohamed Ali Samantar in a Virginia federal district court under the Torture Victim Protection Act ("TVPA") and the Alien Tort Statute ("ATS"). Plaintiffs alleged that Mr. Samantar committed torture and other human rights violations while he commanded Somali government agents under the regime of Mohamed Siad Barre. The district court dismissed the case, holding that Mr. Samantar was immune to suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act ("FSIA").

On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that the FSIA did not render Mr. Samantar immune to suit. The court reasoned that the FSIA does not apply to foreign government officials. The court further reasoned that even if the FSIA does apply to foreign government officials, it does not apply to former foreign government officials.

Question:

1) Does a foreign state's FSIA immunity from suit extend to an individual acting in his official capacity on behalf of the foreign state?
2) Does an individual who is no longer a government official of a foreign state at the time suit is filed retain FSIA immunity for acts taken in that individual's former capacity as a government official acting on behalf of a foreign state?

David P. Stuarttól egy kiváló cikk olvasható az ügyről az ASIL Insights-ban.

Izland, pénzügyi válság, nemzetközi (pénzügyi) jog

Görögország, Lettország, Spanyolország előtt már Izland is jó nagyot harapott a pénzügyi válság mérgezett almájából. A nemzetközi jogi vonatkozásairól ebből a cikkből lehet többet megtudni: Iceland's Financial Crisis - Quo Vadis International Law, Michael Waibel.

Arra pedig, hogy Izland a következmények országa, álljon itt néhány sor a pénzügyi válságot megelőzően és során elkövetett pénzügyi bűncselekményeket vizsgáló különleges ügyészi hivatalról:

On 1 February 2009 the Special Prosecutor took office. According to Act No. 135/2008 the Special Prosecutor is responsible to direct the office of public investigation and prosecution. The Special Prosecutor will investigate suspicions of criminal actions in the period preceding, in connection with or in the wake of the collapse of the Icelandic banks, whether this is connected to activities of financial undertakings, other legal entities or individuals, and, as the case may be, follow up on these investigations by bringing charges in court against those concerned.

The authorisations granted to the office to investigate and lay charges cover economic violations, gainful offences and taxation infringements, including offences which have been investigated by the Directorate of Tax Investigations in Iceland, the Icelandic Competition Authority and the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority where criminal charges have been laid.

Érdekes cikkek

- Security Council Treaty Action: Stefan A G Talmon University of Oxford - Faculty of LawRevue Hellénique de Droit International, Vol. 62, pp. 65-116, 2009

This paper examines the way in which the Security Council has used its powers under the UN Charter to take certain treaty actions. In particular, it asks whether there are any legal limits to the Security Council adapting existing treaties to a particular situation, and whether it can prescribe pre-existing treaty provisions to non-State parties. It also examines the consequences if the Security Council formally endorses a certain treaty, and the role it plays in the enforcement and interpretation of treaties.

- Sacrificial Violence and Targeting in International Humanitarian Law, Gregor Noll, Lund University - Faculty of Law

The author argues that casualties are perceived as necessary preconditions for peace in an international community, introduces a theory explaining how the causation of incidental death of civilians, rather than the willed death of enemy combatants, plays a pacifying role in the symbolic order of international law. He wishes to explore targeting norms as part of a contemporary victimisation ritual, offering the civilian casualty in exchange for divine appeasement of an international community. This approach draws on the work of René Girard explaining how communal violence is contained through ritual acts of sacrificial killings.

- Treaties in the Supreme Court: 1946-2000, Paul B. Stephan III, University of Virginia School of Law

This paper, a chapter in a forthcoming book on International Law and the Supreme Court, examines the treaty decisions of the Court during the postwar era, up until the second Bush Administration. Three patterns stand in the many (roughly 130) decisions. First, the Court acted as if the immediately preceding period – the New Deal, then the War – created a sharp break with the past, freeing the Court to address many questions as novel rather than rooted in settled practice. Second, the Court largely resisted the invocation of treaties as authority contradicting congressional statutes and executive practice regarding matters of public law, but gave greater effect to treaties that addressed what the Court perceived as matters of private interest

- The Mysterious Mysteriousness of Complementarity, Darryl Robinson, Queen's University (Canada)

This article explores an unusual interpretive disconnect in the discourse on complementarity, and shows how that disconnect is obscuring the most important questions about the relationship between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and national systems. Several Chambers of the ICC have held that, in the absence of national proceedings, a case is admissible before the ICC. Many commentators regard this position as a ‘gloss’, an ‘invented’ prong, and a departure from the Statute. Interestingly, such critiques are rooted in a sincere, firmly-held and widely-shared belief that Article 17 contains a one-step test requiring either ‘unwillingness’ or ‘inability’. This article demonstrates that, contrary to the popular simplification of the complementarity test, Article 17 expressly provides not a one-step test, but a two-step test, the first explicit question of which is whether a State is investigating or prosecuting the case or has done so. Thus, admissibility-due-to-inaction is not a creative inference or an imaginative gloss; it arises from the literal, unambiguous text of Article 17.

A strasbourgi emberi jogi bíróság (ECtHR) jövője

Február 18-19 között tartották meg az ECtHR jövőjéről szóló kormányközi megbeszélést a svájci Interlaken-ben:

The aim of the conference, which was organised by the Swiss Chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, was to reaffirm member states’ commitment to protecting human rights in Europe, and their determination to enable the European Court of Human Rights, which is a vital cog in the protection mechanism, to cope with the growing volume of applications.

The Court currently faces a desperate situation. There are more than 100 000 outstanding cases. Ninety percent of the applications to the Court are clearly inadmissible or have no legal basis, which reveals a serious ignorance of the Convention and the Court's procedures. It also shows that the Convention system needs to be revitalised by a more rigorous application of the subsidiarity principle, and to be enforced in domestic courts.

Az elhangzott beszédek elolvashatók/meghallgathatók itt, az elfogadott nyilatkozat és akcióterv pedig innen tölthető le.

Érdekes döntések Luxembourgból és Strasbourgból

Február 25-én hozta meg döntését az ECJ a C-386/08, Brita ügyben:

32. The German customs authorities provisionally granted the preferential tariff applied for, but commenced the procedure for subsequent verification. On being questioned by the German customs authorities, the Israeli customs authorities replied that ‘[o]ur verification has proven that the goods in question originate in an area that is under Israeli Customs responsibility. As such, they are originating products pursuant to the [EC-Israel] Association Agreement and are entitled to preferential treatment under that agreement’.

33. By letter of 6 February 2003, the German customs authorities asked the Israeli customs authorities to indicate, by way of supplementary information, whether the goods in question had been manufactured in Israeli-occupied settlements in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. That letter remained unanswered.

34. By decision of 25 September 2003, the German Customs authorities therefore refused the preferential treatment that had been granted previously, on the ground that it could not be established conclusively that the imported goods fell within the scope of the EC-Israel Association Agreement. Consequently, a decision was taken to seek post-clearance recovery of customs duties amounting to a total of EUR 19 155.46.

52. Accordingly, to interpret Article 83 of the EC-Israel Association Agreement as meaning that the Israeli customs authorities enjoy competence in respect of products originating in the West Bank would be tantamount to imposing on the Palestinian customs authorities an obligation to refrain from exercising the competence conferred upon them by virtue of the abovementioned provisions of the EC-PLO Protocol. Such an interpretation, the effect of which would be to create an obligation for a third party without its consent, would thus be contrary to the principle of general international law, ‘pacta tertiis nec nocent nec prosunt’, as consolidated in Article 34 of the Vienna Convention.

Azzal kapcsolatban, hogy Ciszjordánia Izrael részét képezi e, érdemes továbbá elolvasni az Advocate General véleményét.

- Március 2-án pedig a ECtHR döntött az Al-Saadoon and Mufdhi v. United Kingdom (no. 61498/08) ügyben. A nyolcvan oldalas ítélet in a nutshell:

“The basic question raised by the case is whether the transfer by the UK of the applicants who were in the custody of UK troops in Iraq to Iraqi authorities for trial violated the applicants ECHR rights, specifically the non-refoulement principle established by the Court in Soering v. UK, inter alia because there was serious risk of them being subjected to the death penalty. In Soering itself the issue was the surrender of the applicant to the US, where there was serious risk of him being subjected to the death penalty. However, the death penalty was at the time still not outlawed with respect to the UK by Protocols 6 and 13, and so the actual issue was inhuman treatment that the applicant would suffer as a consequence of the death row phenomenon. Likewise, without the two protocols, Article 2(1) ECHR specifically contemplates the death penalty, and it as such could not be held to be contrary to other provisions of the Convention, namely Article 3 prohibiting all forms of ill-treatment”.

Karadžić kétnapos "nyitóbeszéde" után ismét elnapolták perét

Március 1-én ismét összeült az ICTY elsőfokú bírói tanácsa, hogy meghallgassa Radovan Karadžić nyitóbeszédét (opening statement). Az ügyészség a vádat még októberben ismertette, s az öthónapos szünet után ez Karadžić egyfajta viszontválasza (lásd egy korábbi Karadžić PhD-es gyakornok kiváló cikkét az elmúlt hónapokról) volt. Ami inkább történelmi okfejtésből, mintsem érdemi védekezésből állt.

Karadžić még február végén kérte perének további majd’ 4 hónappal való újbóli elhalasztását, amit a tanács megtagadott. A fellebbezés iránti kérelmét azonban elfogadták (interlocutory appeal) és a másodfokú tanács döntéséig ("in the interest of justice") az eljárást felfüggesztették.