Pak violated Vienna Convention in Jadhav's case: ICJ

News Network
October 31, 2019

United Nations, Oct 31: Pakistan violated its obligations under the Vienna Convention in the arrest and detention of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, International Court of Justice (ICJ) President Judge Abduylqawi Yusuf told the UN General Assembly here.

Jadhav, 49, a retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of "espionage and terrorism" after a closed trial in April 2017. India has maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Presenting the report of the International Court of Justice to the 193-member General Assembly on Wednesday, Yusuf said in its judgement of July 17 the principal judicial organ of the United Nations “found that Pakistan had violated its obligations under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention and that appropriate remedies were due in this case.”

In a major victory for India, the ICJ had ruled that Pakistan must review the death sentence given to Jadhav. India had argued that consular access was being denied to its national in violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

The bench led by Yusuf had ordered an "effective review and reconsideration of the conviction and sentence of Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav.”

Yusuf elaborated on several aspects of the Court's ruling in Jadhav's case while presenting his report to the General Assembly.

He said one of the issues that the Court had to examine was the question of whether the rights relating to consular access, set out in Article 36 of the Vienna Convention, were in any manner to be excluded in a situation where the individual concerned was suspected of carrying out acts of espionage.

“The Court noted in that regard that there is no provision in the Vienna Convention containing a reference to cases of espionage; nor does the Article concerning consular access, Article 36, exclude from its scope certain categories of persons, such as those suspected of espionage. Therefore, the Court concluded that Article 36 of the Vienna Convention was applicable in full to the case at hand,” he said.

The Court was also called upon to interpret the meaning of the expression “without delay” in the notification requirements of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention. The Court noted that in its case, the question of how to determine what was meant by the term “without delay” depended on the given circumstances of a case.

“Taking into account the particular circumstances of the Jadhav case, the Court noted that Pakistan's making of the notification some three weeks after Jadhav's arrest constituted a breach of its obligation to inform India's consular post “without delay”, as required by the provisions of the Vienna Convention,” he noted.

He further said that “another interesting legal question” that the Court had to address was whether a bilateral agreement on consular access concluded between the two Parties - India and Pakistan - in 2008 could be read as excluding the applicability of the Vienna Convention.

“The Court considered that this was not the case,” he said.

“More precisely, the Court noted that under the Vienna Convention, parties were able to conclude only bilateral agreements that confirm, supplement, extend or amplify the provisions of that instrument. Having examined the 2008 Agreement, the Court came to the conclusion that it could not be read as denying consular access in the case of an arrest, detention or sentence made on political or security grounds, and that it did not displace obligations under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention.”

Coming to the “crux” of the Court's ruling, he said the Court considered the reparation and remedies to be granted, after it had found that the rights to consular access had been violated.

"In line with its earlier jurisprudence in other cases dealing with breaches of the Vienna Convention, the Court found that the appropriate remedy was effective review and reconsideration of the conviction and sentence of Mr. Jadhav.”

Yusuf told the General Assembly that the Court moreover clarified what it considered to be the requirements of effective review and reconsideration.

It stressed that “Pakistan must ensure that full weight is given to the effect of the violation of the rights set forth in the Vienna Convention and guarantee that the violation and the possible prejudice caused by the violation are fully examined.”

“While the Court left the choice of means to provide effective review and reconsideration to Pakistan, it noted that effective review and reconsideration presupposes the existence of a procedure that is suitable for this purpose and observed that it is normally the judicial process that is suited to this task.”

Yusuf said that following its ruling, the Court received a communication dated August 1, 2019 from Pakistan confirming its commitment to implementing the July 17 judgment in full.

“In particular, Pakistan stated that Jadhav had been immediately informed of his rights under the Vienna Convention and that the consular post of the High Commission of India in Islamabad had been invited to visit him on August 2, 2019,” Yusuf said.

However, the meeting, which was scheduled on August 2, did not materialise amid differences between India and Pakistan on the terms of the consular access to Jadhav.

Jadhav was finally granted the consular access on September 2.

India had welcomed the verdict of the International Court of Justice, saying that the ruling of the court by a vote of 15-1 upheld India's position in the case.

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News Network
May 24,2020

New Delhi, May 24: Overwhelmed by the donations that poured in from the society for his help, Phool Mia, the fruit seller in north Delhi's Jagatpuri area whose mangoes were looted by the ordinary people, said that those who helped him have made his "Eid" and have shown that "humanity is still alive".

Video footage that went viral on social media, shows that scores of passers-by looted the unattended crates of mangoes of a fruit seller after a fight broke out in the neighbourhood. The incident took place on Wednesday.

"My stock of mangoes worth Rs 30,000 was kept there. Some persons were fighting with each other fearing which I left the place to avoid any sort of altercation. When I returned, I saw that they were looting the mangoes kept there. There were 50-100 people who were involved in this act," Phool Mia, narrated the ordeal.

"A video got viral about the incident after which people donated to me on a portal. They empathised with me when I was ruined. I thank the media and all those people who have donated from the bottom of my heart as they made my Eid. Now, I would be able to celebrate Eid with my children. This shows humanity is still alive," he added.

However, four people have been arrested on the basis of video footage, Delhi Police said.

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Agencies
March 14,2020

New Delhi, Mar 14: The number of novel coronavirus cases in India rose to 83 on Saturday, which includes one death each from Delhi and Karnataka, the Union Health Ministry said.

While a 76-year-old man from Kalaburagi who had recently returned from Saudi Arabia died on Thursday, a 68-year-old woman in Delhi who had tested positive for coronavirus passed away at Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital on Friday night.

The woman, whose son with a travel history abroad had tested positive, died because of co-morbidity (diabetes and hypertension), the Health Ministry said, adding that she had tested positive for COVID-19.

Delhi has reported seven positive cases and Uttar Pradesh 11 so far. Karnataka has six coronavirus patients while Maharashtra has 14 and Ladakh three.

Besides, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab have reported one case each. Telangana has reported two.

Kerala has recorded 19 cases, including three patients who were discharged last month after they recovered from the contagious infection with flu-like symptoms.

The total number of 84 confirmed cases includes 17 foreigners -- 16 Italian tourists and a Canadian, the ministry officials said.

Amid rising coronavirus cases in India, the government has asked people not to panic, saying no community transmission of the virus has been observed and there has only been a few cases of local transmission so far and that is "not a health emergency" in India at present.

With the World Health Organisation (WHO) declaring COVID-19 a pandemic, a Health Ministry official said over 4,000 people who had come in contact with the 83 positive cases have been identified through contract tracing and were being tracked while 42,000 people across the country are under community surveillance.

He said all essential facilities like community surveillance, quarantine, isolation wards, adequate personal protective equipment (PPEs), trained manpower, rapid response teams are being strengthened further in all the states and union territories.

The Centre as part of its measures to contain the spread of the disease on Friday announced that people will be allowed to travel through 19 of 37 land border checkposts from Saturday midnight and services of the Indo-Bangladesh cross border passenger trains and buses will continue to remain suspended till April 15.

Only four Indo-Nepal border checkposts will remain operational, and for citizens of Bhutan and Nepal visa-free entry to the country will continue, Home Ministry Additional Secretary Anil Malik had said.

He said the decision on closing the Kartarpur Corridor is under consideration

The government on Wednesday suspended all visas, barring a few categories like diplomatic and employment, in an attempt to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

It has asked Indian nationals to avoid all non-essential travel abroad.

All incoming international passengers returning to India should self-monitor their health and follow the required do's and dont's as detailed by the government.

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News Network
June 2,2020

London/Milan, Jun 2: World Health Organization experts and a range of other scientists said on Monday there was no evidence to support an assertion by a high profile Italian doctor that the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic has been losing potency.

Professor Alberto Zangrillo, head of intensive care at Italy's San Raffaele Hospital in Lombardy, which bore the brunt of Italy's COVID-19 epidemic, on Sunday told state television that the new coronavirus "clinically no longer exists".

But WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove, as well as several other experts on viruses and infectious diseases, said Zangrillo's comments were not supported by scientific evidence.

There is no data to show the new coronavirus is changing significantly, either in its form of transmission or in the severity of the disease it causes, they said.

"In terms of transmissibility, that has not changed, in terms of severity, that has not changed," Van Kerkhove told reporters.

It is not unusual for viruses to mutate and adapt as they spread, and the debate on Monday highlights how scientists are monitoring and tracking the new virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has so far killed more than 370,000 people and infected more than 6 million.

Martin Hibberd, a professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said major studies looking at genetic changes in the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 did not support the idea that it was becoming less potent, or weakening in any way.

"With data from more than 35,000 whole virus genomes, there is currently no evidence that there is any significant difference relating to severity," he said in an emailed comment.

Zangrillo, well known in Italy as the personal doctor of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said his comments were backed up by a study conducted by a fellow scientist, Massimo Clementi, which Zangrillo said would be published next week.

Zangrillo told Reuters: "We have never said that the virus has changed, we said that the interaction between the virus and the host has definitely changed."

He said this could be due either to different characteristics of the virus, which he said they had not yet identified, or different characteristics in those infected.

The study by Clementi, who is director of the microbiology and virology laboratory of San Raffaele, compared virus samples from COVID-19 patients at the Milan-based hospital in March with samples from patients with the disease in May.

"The result was unambiguous: an extremely significant difference between the viral load of patients admitted in March compared to" those admitted last month, Zangrillo said.

Oscar MacLean, an expert at the University of Glasgow's Centre for Virus Research, said suggestions that the virus was weakening were "not supported by anything in the scientific literature and also seem fairly implausible on genetic grounds."

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