Political Prisoners

Political prisoners

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 7

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 9

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 10

What is a political prisoner?

It is commonly held to he a feature of advanced democratic societies that a clear separation exists between politics and the law, or the executive and judiciary. Indeed, legal autonomy is often regarded as an essential check on political power. Articles 9 and 19 of the Universal Declaration, cited above, clearly state that the judiciary and its agents such as the police cannot perform their duties in any manner that might be partial or arbitrary A trial, for example, must be fair, and for it to be fair the judicial process must be free from interference from the executive.

This presupposes, of course, that the prisoners even brought to trial. Despite the wording of these Articles, international law still permits governments to exercise administrative detention, or internment, in emergency situations where it is considered the best possible option. Administrative detention can be described as �detention by the executive branch of government without a judicial warrant, without the filing of any criminal charge and without the intention of bringing the detainee to trial’.’ Each of these three clauses appears to violate the principles of justice.

Article 9 is admirably to the point. Its intentions are presented in more detail in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 9, the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 5, and the American Convention on Human Rights, Article 7, each of which lists the rights due to anyone who has been arrested or detained. These rights include the right to he informed of the reasons for the arrest and of the specific charges being made; the right upon detention to take the matter to court so that the court may decide upon the lawfulness of the arrest; and the right to compensation for wrongful arrest. Article 9 of the Political Covenant ends with the demand that �no one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedures as are established by law’.2 The consequences of this demand are that the powers of the executive are duly curtailed, and that �not every policeman (or other state functionary) is entitled to decide at his discretion, and on his own responsibility, who can he arrested, why and how’.3 In so far as detention is permissible, it must therefore be �in accordance with law hut also in conformity to the principles of justice’.4 These principles of justice are further secured through Article 10, which clearly lays out the conditions within which an’ judicial process is permitted to take place it must be fair (impartial) and public (open to public scrutiny).

This chapter is dedicated to charting how, in various ways, legal systems have served as mere agents of political systems, how political agendas have manipulated the law. The noble idea of justice is the idea that the law is there to protect us all. In the wrong hands, though, the law is a dangerous weapon that can be, and often is, directed against those who pose the greatest (threats to the political regime. The sanction of the law — the power of imprisonment — can take many forms. An Amnesty International report from 1980 provides a chilling introduction:

An estimated 15,000 people �disappear’ in one country and, in another 25,000 people are seized, �disappear’ or are killed..

In a third country, the wife of an imprisoned nationalist leader serves out another 24 hours of a �banning’ order, the latest in a series that has ruled every day of her life for the past 16 years...

In a fourth, a trade unionist is detained by the police for the 24” time In two years...

The vast majority of these people, political prisoners