Emmerson: Special risking Kadri Wessel's constitutional rights

A strange protocol for contact with witnesses that was adopted a few days ago by the preliminary judge at the Special Court has raised the serious concern of Kadri Wessel's lawyer, Ben Emmerson.

The latter, in a parachute sent to the tribunal several days ago, has raised the alarm that the rules imposed by the judge at the request of the prosecution could constitute serious violations of Wessel's rights in the trial, writes the news.net.

The “is clear and self-aware that all proposed issues directly influence the outcome of the procedure, potentially violating Mr. Wessel for a fair trial as protected by the Constitution and relevant international human rights instruments”, says in the Emmerson parade that has seen the news.net.

Moreover, Emmerson has illustrated how with the decision to contact witnesses, the basic principle for “weapons equality” has been broken in a judicial process.

The British lawyer has stressed how the Court has given the prosecution the right in its request that the defence be denied freedom in choosing the methodology of contact and interviewing witnesses, where non-official and non-registered meetings are outlined.

“From the defence paradents it is clear that the right to the equality of weapons would be violated by denying the same defence “lary in selecting witness contact methodology and interviewing, which included informal and not recorded”. Furthermore, instead of showing every “hypothetically 48x4>, defence referred to specific and objective cases that would provide SPO with an unfair tactical advantage”

Emmerson has stressed that with the decision made by the preliminary judge, the prosecution will be informed of every secret step of lawyers, including which witnesses have priorial protection, and would be given prosecutorial knowledge of witnesses' credibility and possible interrogation lines long before the trial.

We remember that the prosecution wanted access to each interview of witnesses while the Court accepted the same.

However, the judge had decided as a condition that the SPS address the medical court to participate in those interviews.

Although the statement mentions “pala calling” and “pale”, on the question of interviewing witnesses that's worth most to defence. After the prosecution has only completed most of the interviews with witnesses.