The Ombudsperson, Mihail Cotorobai, participated in the Conference entitled “Implementation of guarantees in the activity of human rights defenders, performed by specialized lawyers”. The event was held during 20-22 November by Human Rights House Network, in cooperation with its branches from Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Human Rights House Foundation of Norway, Human Rights Embassy of Moldova, Russian Research Center for Human Rights.
The Conference got together lawyers specialized in the defence of human rights from the Republic of Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Azerbaijan and aimed to present and discuss the Report on “Human Rights Lawyers: risks and threats”; exchange the experience between organizations from several countries of the Human Rights House Network; strengthen cooperation between human rights protecting organizations and human rights lawyers from countries that are part to the “International Law to Protect Public Interests” Program. The conference was held in Kiev and in Chernigov House of Human Rights.
The Ombudsperson participated actively in several sessions, including the one entitled “National institutions on human rights and legal professional associations and their role in enhancing the activity of human rights protection”.
Mihail Cotorobai referred to the openness of the Ombudsperson’s Office for cooperation with legal professional associations for purposes of achieving the goal of human rights protection. The Ombudsperson spoke about the contacts established with the Union of Lawyers of the Republic of Moldova, which is being reformed now. In another train of thoughts, the Ombudsperson mentioned that several months ago he had defended the Moldovan Union of Lawyers, when representatives of criminal prosecution bodies performed unauthorised searches of several lawyers’ offices. Stressing the fundamental role of lawyers and their professional associations in ensuring protection of fundamental human rights and freedoms, the Ombudsperson added that he had recommended to offer sufficient grounds for the search warrants and seizure warrants, and to review the practices of searching the lawyers’ work premises and withdrawing objects and documents that constitute a professional secret in order to comply with the principle of proportionality and the regulatory framework in force.
Mihail Cotorobai reiterated that an Ombudsperson could not perform efficiently his/her duties without the support of the Parliament and civil society.
As a related matter, the Ombudsperson pointed out that the staff of the Ombudsperson’s Office participated as trainers in the training of legal professionals, including lawyers, organized by the National Institute of Justice in the human rights area.