Human rights official quits
Percy MacLean clashed with institute's board over his focus on
abuses
in Germany
By Carola Schlagheck
Only half a year after taking up his post, the first director
of the
new German Institute of Human Rights resigned last week after
repeated
clashes with the institute's board of directors over his tough
stance
on domestic civil rights issues.
"There were certain disagreements on how detailed we should
look into
certain issues, not a dispute over whether domestic issues should
be
dealt with at all," Percy MacLean said in an
interview with F.A.Z.
Weekly. However, the board considered it "politically too
explosive"
to check whether the country actually complies with international
human rights obligations, and instead wanted to restrict itself
to
merely scrutinizing the obligations, he added. "The
institute is
supposed to offer consulting services for politicians. This means
for
me also to give the impetus for better implementation."
The tax-financed institute was launched last March, based on a
parliamentary decision in 2000. It is run by the director and a
board,
or curatorship, that includes representatives of political
parties,
ministries, rights organizations, the news media and academia.
Six of
the 12 board members with voting rights - government
representatives
are not allowed to vote - carried a vote of no-confidence in
MacLean,
prompting him to resign.
"One of the main problems was that the director's
independence is not
guaranteed. You can accomplish such a task only if the director
is
completely independent," MacLean said. To ensure greater
independence,
he said, it should take more votes to oust the director.
The managing director of the human rights organization Pro Asyl,
Günter Burkhardt, told F.A.Z. Weekly that MacLean's resignation
was a
"severe setback that plunges the institute into crisis.
MacLean
addressed the central human rights issues in Germany, such as
deportation custody of one and a half years," Burkhardt
said. His
"forced resignation" questions the credibility of the
federal
government, because one can only stand up for human rights abroad
credibly if one does so in one's own country, Burkhardt added.
Barbara Unmüssig, the board's vice president and head of the
Heinrich
Böll Foundation, which is affiliated with the Green party, is
temporarily running the institute. She confirmed that there had
been
major disputes with MacLean about how the institute should tackle
various issues.
The board particularly disliked MacLean's idea of involving the
institute with individual cases of rights violations because
these are
already handled by other institutions, she said. Moreover, she
said,
it was not the institute's task to take a stance on labor issues.
The
institute will continue to look into rights violations in Germany
and
the implementation of international agreements, she said.
MacLean, 55, had made it his first act upon taking office to cite
human rights violations within Germany, saying that this was the
only
credible way one could ask other countries to uphold these
rights. He
criticized Germany's deportation practices, its anti-terror laws
and
the way old and sick people are treated, calling for a complete
review
of legislation on foreigners and refugees and demanding research
on
the right to work.
Among the contentious issues were the treatment of old people in
Germany, for which the country is regularly reprimanded by the
United
Nations. It was considered by parts of the board to be a social
issue
and therefore not the institute's responsibility, MacLean said.
Yet
the institute's work was well received abroad, he continued,
saying he
hoped that his resignation would allow for a fresh start because
the
institute is "extremely important."
MacLean, whose surname comes from a Scottish ancestor who arrived
in
what is now Poland in 1753, was born in the eastern German state
of
Thuringia. The former judge of Berlin's administrative court will
now
return to the bench. Unmüssig said the board had set up a
working
group to appoint a new director and review the institute's
structure.
Jan. 24
© Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2002
All rights reserved.
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