The Council for Human Rights, an advisory panel to the justice minister, has submitted a report calling for the creation of an independent organization to provide relief for victims of discrimination, child abuse and other human-rights violations. The proposed body, tentatively called the "human-rights commission," would provide not only routine services such as counseling, but also concrete relief such as mediation, arbitration, recommendations, blacklisting and assistance with litigation.
The plan now in the works calls for reorganizing the Justice Ministry's human-rights divisions into a watchdog commission. The question is whether it will be truly independent of the government. That is a legitimate concern, for an agency with heavy residues of public authority could intervene unnecessarily in purely private disputes. Every possible precaution must be taken to ensure its complete neutrality.
The report divides human-rights problems into four categories: discrimination, domestic abuse, human-rights violations by public authorities and human-rights violations by the media. The commission is expected to provide "active relief" in all these areas.