New Ombudsman Must be Independent

The Tajik government is to create the position of ombudsman for human rights, but NBCentralAsia observers say the institution will be ineffective unless it is entirely independent of the state.



In his annual address to parliament on April 30, President Imomali Rahmon announced plans to create a national human rights institution.



“As a democratic institution, this structure will consolidate relations and cooperation between state agencies and civil society,” he said.



The proposal to establish an ombudsman came from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, who visited Tajikistan on April 25-29. Arbour told met President Rahmon that an ombudsman would be the best way to ensure that human rights were protected.



The US State Department’s latest annual report, relating to 2006, says the human rights situation in Tajikistan is unsatisfactory.



Observers polled by NBCentralAsia say that for the new institution to be a success, it must be independent from both the executive and the legislature.



Lilia Zakharieva, the UN advisor on human rights, says the High Commissioner’s office supports the idea of having an ombudsman provided it corresponds to the “Paris principles” – criteria for institutional independence set out by a resolution of the UN General Assembly.



“Under these criteria, the institution should not be administratively accountable to any organisation except parliament. It should be answerable to a collective body, and its budget should be decided by parliament,” she said.



Jabbor Ahmedov, a member of the parliamentary committee on legislation, constitutional law and human rights, notes that while Tajikistan already has agencies that deal with human rights in one way or another, such as the prosecutor’s office, the police, the justice ministry and some parliamentary committees, they all “deal with these issues from the state’s perspective, whereas the [ombudsman] institution should be independent”.



Ahmedov believes decisions taken by the ombudsman should be more or less binding for other agencies.



Kahramon Sanginov of the non-government Republican Bureau for Human Rights argues that parliament must be put in charge of setting up the institution, which should be led by a respected human rights activist. “There are plenty of candidates for this,” he added.



Sanginov added, “Immediately after being appointed or elected, the ombudsman should become independent from parliament. Neither the president nor anyone else should be able to force him to investigate a case, ban him from continuing an investigation, or interfere in the the process.”



According to political scientist Parviz Mullojanov, the ideal candidate would be an independent figure of high social standing who is well-regarded both inside Tajikistan and if possible abroad.



Without an impartial ombudsman, he said, the institution could end up with the same profile as those in many other post-Soviet countries, where they are used by the authorities to create a pretence of democratic progress.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)