SL questions impartiality of UN Human Rights chief

Sri Lanka yesterday questioned the impartiality of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillai by bringing up an instance which the country believed undermined the proper procedure of the UN.

Plantation Industries Minister and President’s special envoy on human rights Mahinda Samarasinghe slammed the UN Human Rights chief for diverting from the clear procedure of UN Human Rights Council.

He was addressing the 18th session of UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“On the 9th of this month at a luncheon briefing, we were given to understand that the High Commissioner for Human Rights had informed a group of countries that a decision had been taken by the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General to transmit the report of his advisory panel on Sri Lanka to your office and to hers.”

”There was no direct reference to any such transmission.

‘It was rather embarrassing that both you and I had to learn of it from a third party at the luncheon meeting in the presence of representatives of 29 member states of the Council,” he explained.

The failure on the part of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to inform the concerned state, Sri Lanka, was fully inappropriate to say the least, he added.

Samarasinghe stated that this regrettably may lead to a loss of confidence in the office of the High Commissioner.

The Minister said that Sri Lanka believes that Navanethem Pillai should abide by the same principles that govern the work of the UN Human Rights Council, such as, universality, transparency, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity.

The Minister stressed that this kind of practice needs to be discouraged by the Council.

‘Today it could be Sri Lanka, tomorrow it could be any other member state that faces this predicament, he stated.