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UN Internal Justice Dominated by Management's
Lawyers, Whistleblower Restitution Denied
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
July 24 -- As the UN lurches toward
a new "Internal Justice System" since it cannot be sued in outside
courts, several inconsistencies have emerged. At a press conference on
Thursday
in New York, the five members of the UN's Internal Justice Council
acknowledged
among other things that the UN's desire for cost-cutting have led it to
veer
from the recommendations of its own Redesign Panel. A management
representative on the IJC, Maria Vicien-Milburn of the Office of Legal
Affairs,
claimed that currently decisions of the UN's Administrative Tribunal
"are
binding." But subsequent research confirms that decisions requiring the
UN to
do any particular thing can be and have been ignored. Normal courts can
order,
"equitably" as its called, specific performance: that a party before
the court do nor not do a certain thing. But the UN, even when it
loses, is
allowed to opt to pay damages, and not perform the act. Thus, the
decisions are
not binding.
The five IJC members on July 24 --
dominated by UN Management's Office of Legal Affairs?
Inner City Press raised, as a sample case that has added to the
perception of the UN as a lawless place, a recent UN Ethics Office
decision
recommending that an individual who complained of irregularities in the
UN
Development Program's operation in North Korea be given
14 month's back pay.
UNDP has still not paid it, thumbing its nose at the UN Ethics Office.
Inner
City Press asked the UN Office of Legal Affairs' Maria Vicien-Milburn
if she
had any problem with this. "It's not for me to determine," she
answered. Video here,
from Minute 33:33. Thus does a perception of the UN's own
impunity grow.
Another
current process demonstrating UN lawlessness is interviewing of lower
level
staff by the so-called Accountability Panel that is following up on
Lakhdar
Brahimi's report on the bombing of UN premises in Algiers in December
2007. Those being interviewed are denied
the right to counsel, or Union representation; the interviews are video
taped
and, many say, abusive. In fact, even a now-outgoing Department of
Safety and
Security official expresses in private deep concerns about the
interrogations.
Inner City Press asked Sinha Basnayake, who sits on both the IJC and
the
Accountability panel, about the interrogations. He said that the Office
of
Legal Affairs has said they are okay. To many, that gives little
comfort.
Another
IJC member, Goeffrey Robertson, acknowledged on camera that he favored
new UN
judges being equal in rank to at least the Assistant Secretaries
General whose
acts they will weigh. But now the proposal is for judges to have a
lower rank.
Is management's Office of Legal Affairs
being allowed to dominate the drafting of the new system's statute? Mr.
Robertson said that he, as a Council member, has not bee involved. "Ask
OLA," he said. But OLA, at least under outgoing head Nicolas Michel,
has
ignored a series of Press questions. He will be appearing on July 25
for a
"farewell" press conference.
Watch
this site. And
this --
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