ICCL Statement. Dublin, 20 November 2012
Ireland’s human rights watchdog, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has strongly backed calls by Savita Halappanavar’s husband, Praveen, for the inquiry into his wife’s death to be fully independent.
ICCL Director Mr Mark Kelly said:
“Praveen Halappanavar has raised an arguable claim that his wife has been seriously ill-treated and, under human rights law, this places a procedural obligation on the State to conduct an effective official investigation.”
“According to the European Court of Human Rights, in order to be effective, an official investigation must ensure that the persons responsible for and carrying out that investigation are completely independent from those implicated in the events. The proposed inclusion in the inquiry team of three medical consultants from the hospital in which Mr Halappanavar’s wife died manifestly fails to meet this requirement”.
“Professor Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, the proposed head of the inquiry team has reportedly suggested that the main reason to have “internal people involved” is to “find out about their standard practice”. The appropriate manner to achieve this is to call the persons concerned as witnesses before the inquiry, not to include them as members of it”, Mr Kelly added.
ENDS
For more information, please contact:
Walter Jayawardene
Communications Manager
Irish Council for Civil Liberties
9-13 Blackhall Place
Dublin 7
Ireland
Tel. + 353 1 799 4504
Mob: +353 87 9981574
E-mail: walter.jayawardene@iccl.ie