UNITED CCPR NATIONS International covenant Distr. on civil and GENERAL political rights CCPR/C/ISL/2004/4 28 June 2004 Original: ENGLISH HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 40 OF THE COVENANT Fourth periodic report ICELAND* * The report is issued unedited, in compliance with the wish expressed by the Human Rights Committee at its sixty-sixth session in July 1999. GE.04-42349 (E) 080904 CCPR/C/ISL/2004/4 page 2 CONTENTS Paragraphs Page GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ................................................................ 1 - 32 4 Introduction .................................................................................. 1 - 3 4 The effects of amendments to the human rights provisions of the Constitution in 1995 ..................................................................... 4 - 8 4 Legislation in fields coming under the scope of the Covenant ..... 9 6 International agreements ratified or signed by Iceland ................ 10 - 11 9 Conclusions of the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Committee in Icelandic cases ............................... 12 - 20 10 Information requested by the Human Rights Committee in its conclusions of 1998 ...................................................................... 21 - 31 11 Reservations ................................................................................. 32 14 INFORMATION RELATING TO INDIVIDUAL PROVISIONS OF PARTS I, II AND III OF THE COVENANT .......................................... 33 - 136 14 Article 1 ........................................................................................ 34 14 Article 2 ........................................................................................ 35 - 41 14 Article 3 ........................................................................................ 42 - 46 16 Article 4 ........................................................................................ 47 19 Article 5 ........................................................................................ 48 19 Article 6 ........................................................................................ 49 - 50 19 Article 7 ........................................................................................ 51 - 53 19 Article 8 ........................................................................................ 54 - 58 20 Article 9 ........................................................................................ 59 - 61 22 Article 10 ...................................................................................... 62 - 68 23 Article 11 ...................................................................................... 69 25 CCPR/C/ISL/2004/4 page 3 CONTENTS (continued) Paragraphs Page Article 12 ...................................................................................... 70 25 Article 13 ...................................................................................... 71 - 78 26 Article 14 ...................................................................................... 79 - 85 28 Article 15 ...................................................................................... 86 - 87 30 Article 16 ...................................................................................... 88 30 Article 17 ...................................................................................... 89 - 94 30 Article 18 ...................................................................................... 95 - 100 32 Article 19 ...................................................................................... 101 - 105 34 Article 20 ...................................................................................... 106 - 108 36 Article 21 ...................................................................................... 109 - 111 37 Article 22 ...................................................................................... 112 - 114 38 Article 23 ...................................................................................... 115 - 119 39 Article 24 ...................................................................................... 120 - 123 40 Article 25 ...................................................................................... 124 - 127 41 Article 26 ...................................................................................... 128 - 132 43 Article 27 ...................................................................................... 133 - 136 44 CCPR/C/ISL/2004/4 page 4 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS Introduction 1. In the following, Iceland’s Fourth Periodic Report on implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [hereinafter ICCPR] is presented. The Report has been prepared with a view to the Human Rights Committee’s guidelines of 26 February 2001 (CCPR/C/66/GUI/Rev.2). 2. In the first part of this Report, the legal amendments effected and the measures taken during the period of slightly more than five years since Iceland’s Third Periodic Report on the implementation of the ICCPR was considered by the Human Rights Committee on 21 October 1998, will be described in general terms. 3. Thus, a general description will be presented here of legislative evolution, administrative measures and Icelandic judicial practice in the field of human rights, which can be regarded of significance for the implementation of the Covenant in Iceland until April 2004. Part II presents a further discussion of the substance of legal provisions, the application of various human rights provisions in judicial practice, and specific measures, all in the context of the individual provisions of the Covenant. International instruments of significance to which Iceland has become a party will also be mentioned in Part II, as well as the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights [hereinafter ECHR] and the United Nations Human Rights Committee of applications lodged against the Republic of Iceland in the period under consideration. An effort will also be made here to provide specific replies to the points to which the Committee drew attention in its concluding observations of 8 November 1998 following its consideration of Iceland’s Third Periodic Report on the implementation of the ICCPR in Iceland. The effects of amendments to the human rights provisions of the Constitution in 1995 4. Iceland’s Third Periodic Report was compiled in 1995, at about the time when fundamental amendments to the human rights provisions of the Constitution were enacted by Constitutional Act No. 97/1995. Its human rights provisions in effect until then had remained almost unaltered since the adoption of Iceland’s first Constitution in 1874, as they had not been changed at the time Iceland became a republic and the present Constitution, No. 33/1944, entered into effect. With the amendment of 1995 a multitude of new human rights provisions were added to the Constitution, and the older provisions were rephrased and modernised. In this, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [hereinafter EHRC] and the ICCPR were chiefly used as models. In the general observations accompanying the bill amending the Constitution a reference is made to these instruments as well as to all the other Council of Europe and United Nations human rights instruments of major significance to which Iceland is a party. As regards a further description of these amendments a reference shall be made here to Iceland’s Third Periodic Report, and in addition, the Constitution in its entirety is enclosed with this Report. When the Human Rights Committee considered Iceland’s Third Periodic Report in the autumn of 1998, various other information was provided as regards the effects of the amendments to the Constitution during the three years that then had passed since their adoption. CCPR/C/ISL/2004/4 page 5 5. It is safe to state that in past five years the effects of the amendments to the Constitution within the Icelandic legal system have increased greatly, both as regards legislation and application of law, and that this has augmented considerably the protection of human rights under Icelandic law. Icelandic courts have actively applied the human rights provisions of the Constitution and have in a large number of cases examined whether the actions taken by both the administrative and legislative branches have conflicted with those provisions. In this context, the marked tendency of the courts to interpret the provisions of the Constitution in the light of international human rights obligations, in particular of the ICCPR and the EHRC, has made itself increasingly felt. The courts have also made references in this regard to the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the European Social Charter, as well as to other instruments. A large number of judgments have been rendered in the past five years where the human rights provisions of the Constitution have been at issue and where references have been made to the ICCPR. They will not all be enumerated in this Report, but some of them will be described in the context of the individual provisions of the Covenant. 6. An administrative decision conflicting with the human rights provisions of the Constitution will be invalidated by the courts of Iceland, and this may make a person suffering loss as a result of the decision entitled to compensation. There are many examples of this in judicial practice. It is recognised, i.a. in the light