UNITED CCPR NATIONS International covenant Distr. on civil and GENERAL political rights CCPR/C/BRA/2004/2 11 April 2005 Original: ENGLISH HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 40 OF THE COVENANT Second periodic report BRAZIL* [15 November 2004] * 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.05-41019 CCPR/C/BRA/2004/2 Page 2 1. Introduction 1. Since Brazil's ratification of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on January 24, 1992, a number of political and institutional changes have been implemented and significant progress has been made in the effort to build a normative framework capable of guaranteeing the fundamental rights of individuals in the country. Despite those changes and the process of democratic consolidation pursued up to now, significant challenges remain with respect to securing economic and social improvements capable of ensuring application of those rights, as well as transforming the guarantees formally assured in the Constitution and the infra-constitutional legislation into a cultural mindset. The experience of the decade since the first report on the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was submitted by the federal government, in 1994, has been marked by a disturbing contradiction: while on the one hand, Brazil has never before achieved a comparable level of progress in building a legal order committed to Human Rights, on the other hand, some of these achievements have yet to be reflected in public policies or effective guarantees for the Brazilian population. 2. This Second Report gives particular consideration to the observations, suggestions, and recommendations made by the Human Rights Committee following its analysis of Brazil's Initial Report. It focuses on the measures adopted by Brazil in response to the Committee's principal concerns, as well as those measures intended to implement the Committee's suggestions and recommendations, as set forth in official UN document CCPR/C/79/Add.66, of 24 July 1996. 3. In accordance with these specific items, the Second Brazilian Report on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopts the same systematic approach used in the Initial Report. It is composed of three parts: 1) an introduction; 2) information on articles 1 to 27; and 3) an annex containing Brazil's legislation concerning the Covenant. Note that this approach conforms fully to United Nations' directives governing the preparation of reports. 4. The introduction presents a general analysis of the advances, obstacles, and challenges of implementing the civil and political rights set out In the Covenant. Following a general overview of the application of civil and political rights in Brazil, the second part of the report is devoted to a specific examination of the manner in which Brazil has implemented each of the rights enumerated in articles 1 to 27 of the Covenant. Because of the delays in submitting the Second Report, the document covers 2 more extensive period of time, from 1994 to June 2004. In this time, it is possible to point to a number of significant institutional developments specifically regarding the Covenant's implementation in Brazil including: a) The launch of National Human Rights Programs I and II through Decrees no. 1904, of 13 May 1996 and no. 4229, of 13 May 2002, respectively, which reflected the demands and expectations of civil society and elevated the priority extended to the struggle on behalf of Human Rights in Brazil by proposing government actions to protect and promote civil and political rights in the country. Following this initiative, many states developed regional CCPR/C/BRA/2004/2 Page 3 Human Rights plans, leading to a series of innovative experiments and enactment of humanistic public policies; b) The establishment of the National Human Rights Secretariat, in April 1997. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Siiva's administration has renamed the Secretariat the Special Secretariat for Human Rights, conferred ministerial-level status on the agency, and placed it under the direct authority of the Presidency of the Republic; c) The approval of Law no. 9140/95, which officially recognizes the death of those persons disappeared as a consequence of their political activities during the military dictatorship and requires the Union to compensate the victims' families; d) The approval of Law no. 9100/95, which establishes quotas for women candidates to legislative positions with a view to stimulating political participation by women; e) The approval of Law no. 9029/95, which prohibits the requirement that individuals present proof of pregnancy and sterilization certificates, as well as other discriminatory practices, used as instruments in hiring or determining the continuation of a legal employment relationship; f) The approval of Law no. 9099/95, which establishes the Special Civil and Criminal Courts to assure expanded access to the justice system and increased speed in the resolution of minor disputes; (in compliance with item 24 of the suggestions and recommendations of the United Nations' Human Rights Committee); g) The approval of Law no. 3299/96, which transfers jurisdictional authority over intentional crimes against human life committed by military police officers from the Military Courts to the Common Courts, thereby eliminating the privileged forum that had previously shielded military police officers responsible for the deaths of civilians; (in compliance with item 18 of the suggestions and recommendations of the United Nations' Human Rights Committee): h) The approval of Complementary Law no. 88/96, which establishes summary expropriations aimed at carrying forward the agrarian reform process; i) The approval of Law no. 9503/97, which enacts the Brazilian Traffic Code; j) The approval of Law 9534/97, which mandates the issuance of essential documentation such as birth and death certificates at no charge; k) The approval of Law no. 9455/97, which specifically defines the crime of torture; (in compliance with item 18 of the suggestions and recommendations of the United Nations' Human Rights Committee); CCPR/C/BRA/2004/2 Page 4 I) The approval of Law no. 9459/97, which expands on the provisions of Law no. 7716/89 governing the crimes of racism and racial discrimination and includes crimes of discrimination based on ethnicity, national origin, and religion; (in compliance with item 27 of the suggestions and recommendations of the United Nations' Human Rights Committee); m) The approval of Law no. 9437/97, which outlaws the illicit possession of arms and establishes the National Arms System (Sistema Nacional de Armas); n) The approval of Law no. 9474/97, which establishes the Statute on Refugees; o) The approval of Complementary Law no. 93/98, which establishes the "Banco da Terra" to serve as an additional instrument in the implementation of agrarian reform; p) The approval of Law 9741/98, which institutes eight new alternative penalties; (in compliance with item 25 of the suggestions and recommendations of the United Nations' Human Rights Committee); q) The implementation of Human Rights training courses for civil and military police officers; (in compliance with item 13 of the suggestions and recommendations of the United Nations' Human Rights Committee); r) The establishment of Police Ombudsman offices in several states to act independently and receive complaints involving crimes and improper conduct by police officers; (in compliance with item 22 of the suggestions and recommendations of the United Nations' Human Rights; s) The approval of Federal Law no. 9807/99, which implements the National Victims' Assistance and Witnesses Protection Program (Programs Nacional de Assistência a Vítimas e Proteção às Testemunhas Ameaçadas) and includes provisions governing the protection of individuals accused or convicted of crimes who effectively cooperate with police investigations and the criminal justice system; t) The approval of Law no. 10216/2001, which sets out provisions on the protection and rights of individuals suffering from mental illnesses or disturbances and reorders the mental healthcare system; u) The approval of Law no. 10098/2000, which establishes the general rules and basic criteria for promoting access for individuals with disabilities or limited mobility; v) The approval of Constitutional Amendment no. 20/98, raising the minimum working age for adolescents to 16 and the minimum age for apprenticeships from 14 to 16; w) The approval of the Disarmament Statute, Law no. 10826/2003, which sets out provisions restricting the registration, ownership, and sale of firearms and ammunition and on the National Arms System; CCPR/C/BRA/2004/2 Page 5 x) The approval of the Elderly Statute, Law no. 10741/2003, which consolidates and introduces measures protecting the elderly. 5. At the international level, two important advances in Brazilian Human Rights policy deserve mention, which formalize the recognition of the pertinent international jurisdictional competences charged with protecting such rights. The first refers to Brazil's accession to the statute establishing the Permanent International Criminal Court, approved in Rome, in July 1998. The second advance involves the enactment of Legislative Decree no. 89, of 3 December 1998, which approved the executive branch's request to recognize the jurisdictional competence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. II. Information