Azerbaijani lawyer to lead European anti-torture watchdog

The Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has elected Latif Huseynov from Azerbaijan as its new President, CoE informed on Monday.

Huseynov is Professor of Public International Law at Baku State University, as well as Azerbaijani representative at the same Committee.

This is the first time when an Azeri lawyer is elected as the head of CPT.

The CPT has unlimited access to all places of detention (including prisons and juvenile detention centres, police stations; holding centres for immigration detainees and psychiatric hospitals) in the 47 member States of the Council of Europe, to see how persons deprived of their liberty are treated.

Vladimir Ortakov from "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" has been elected as the CPT's 1st Vice-President. He is a Psychiatric Consultant at the Clinical Hospital Sistina, Skopje.

Haritini Dipla, from Greece and Professor of International Law at the University of Athens, has been re-elected as the CPT's 2nd Vice-President.

These three members of the CPT constitute the Committee's Bureau.

Mauro Palma from Italy, who has headed the CPT over the last four years, did not seek re-election as his membership of the CPT expires in December 2011. For the same reason, the former 1st Vice-President, Pétur Hauksson from Iceland, did not seek re-election. Both remain members of the CPT up to 19 December 2011.


/Trend/