Meeting

The Civil and Political Rights Committee of the National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR) held its 11th regular meeting under the chairpersonship of Mrs. Jamilah Ali Salman, and membership of Mr. Khalid Abdul-Aziz Al-Shaer.

During the meeting, the Committee resumed its discussions of the recommendations of the Secretariat-General in respect of setting a time limit for appealing decisions issued by administrative bodies which is 60 days as of the date of publishing the appealed decision in the Official Gazette, or in the newsletters released by public authorities, or notifying the person with a vested interest and his definite knowledge of it. The Committee emphasized the importance of setting the appeal dates due to its positive impacts on legal stability, particularly as the Bahraini judiciary, and in light of the legislative vacuum on tackling the mentioned time limit, resorted to the applicable custom as a second source of legislation and established that the invalidation lawsuit must be filed within a sufficient period, being sixty days. This cannot be undermined by the different time limits for appealing administrative decisions set forth in the special legislation, as these time limits are considered to be related to parti
cular laws and does not include all decisions.

It is worth mentioning that the Civil and Political Rights Committee of the National Institution for Human Rights is one of the three permanent specific committees. Its scope of work relates to making recommendations and proposals in respect of all matters which help enhance and promote civil and political human rights, reviewing the legal guarantees for exercising these rights, following up on the implementation of relevant international conventions and treaties. The work of Committee also involves examining the compliance of legislative and regulatory texts with the regional and international treaties concerned with human rights issues, studying the legislations and laws in force in the Kingdom in relation to the civil and political rights, recommending the amendments it deems appropriate, giving opinion on whether they are compatible with internal human rights standards and providing the necessary recommendations. Moreover, the Committee is tasked with recommending new legislations in relation to human rig
hts, along with contributing to the preparation of draft parallel reports which the Kingdom undertakes to submit periodically.