The NHRC decided to open to the public the contents of committees such as the plenary committees and senior commissioners" committee (01-28-2003)
The National Human Rights Commission concluded to make public most of the contents of meetings, in order to raise the transparency of the Commission"s management and to guarantee citizens" rights to know in 33rd plenary committee on 27th Jan. 2003. That will exclude, however, cases in which information may violate a person"s right to privacy. Therefore, the NHRC opened matters on 27th Jan; three cases including the discrimination of a new teacher"s hiring because of his previous convictions, which had lost effect, and the matter for voting, including the matter about division of duties of sub-committees and the plenary committee.
The NHRC recently divided the current duties of the plenary committee, senior commissioners" committee and three sub-committees to promote the activity of duties and to improve efficiency. In accordance with this, the titles of sub-committees were changed and responsibilities and authority were enforced.
The NHRC had changed previous titles of three sub-committees, which were the policies and external cooperation sub-committee, human rights violation sub-committee, and discrimination actions sub-committee, into the first sub-committee, the second sub-committee, and the third sub-committee. In cases where there is a need to balance duties, the president of the Commission can allot to another sub-committee, which can deal promptly with the complaints that are unresolved.
After all, in order to enforce the role and insured substantiality of senior commissioners" committee, jobs such as survey of human rights conditions (paragraph 4 of Article 19) and education and public awareness on human rights (paragraph 5 of Article 19) will be dealt with in the senior commissioners" committee. And also whether or not the Commission - initiated investigation will be decided in a senior commissioners" committee to handle promptly urgent incidents in the future. After decisions of the senior commissioners" committee, the president will appoint to the sub-committee in charge.
In addition, the cases which are not submitted to the plenary committee should be put to vote and published in the senior commissioners" committee and sub-committees. For that reason, their responsibility and authority will be enforced.
Matters that individual sub-committees and the senior commissioners" committee submitted will be dealt with in the plenary committee as the highest decision organ in the NHRC. Instances of additional matters are as follows; presentation and recommendation of guidelines for categories of human rights violations, standards for their identification and preventive measures thereafter (paragraph 6 of Article 19); research and recommendation or presentation of opinions with respect to the accession of any international treaty on human rights and the implementation of the treaty (paragraph 7 of Article 19); presentation of opinions to courts and Constitutional court (paragraph 1 of Article 28).
