A/HRC/30/37
practice in implementing each of the obligations, highlighting several examples of good
practice.
7.
The Basic Principles and Guidelines, drawn from international standards and
recognized good practice, are aimed at providing States with guidance on the fundamental
principles on which the laws and procedures regulating the right to bring proceedings
before a court should be based, and on the elements required for its effective exercise.
8.
In the present Basic Principles and Guidelines, the terms “everyone”, “anyone” or
“any person” denote every human being without discrimination based on race, colour, sex,
property, birth, age, national, ethnic or social origin, language, religion, economic
condition, political or other opinion, sexual orientation or gender identity, disability or other
status, and any ground that aims at or may result in undermining the enjoyment of human
rights on a basis of equality. It includes, but is not limited to, girls and boys, soldiers,
persons with disabilities, including psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender and intersex persons, non-nationals, including migrants regardless of
their migration status, refugees and asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless
persons and trafficked persons and persons at risk of being trafficked, persons accused or
convicted of a crime, persons who have or are suspected to have engaged in the preparation,
commission or instigation of acts of terrorism, drug users, persons with dementia, human
rights defenders and activists, older persons, persons living with HIV/AIDS and other
serious communicable or chronic diseases, indigenous peoples, sex workers and minorities
based on national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity.
9.
Deprivation of personal liberty is without free consent. For the purposes of the
present Basic Principles and Guidelines, the term “deprivation of liberty” covers the period
from the initial moment of apprehension until arrest, pretrial and post-trial detention
periods. This includes placing individuals in temporary custody in protective detention or in
international or transit zones in stations, ports and airports, house arrest, rehabilitation
through labour, retention in recognized and non-recognized centres for non-nationals,
including migrants regardless of their migration status, refugees and asylum seekers, and
internally displaced persons, gathering centres, hospitals, psychiatric or other medical
facilities or any other facilities where they remain under constant surveillance, given that
may not only amount to restrictions to personal freedom of movement but also constitute
the de facto deprivation of liberty. It also includes detention during armed conflicts and
emergency situations, administrative detention for security reasons, and the detention of
individuals considered civilian internees under international humanitarian law.
10.
In the present Basic Principles and Guidelines, deprivation of liberty is regarded as
“arbitrary” in the following cases:
(a) When it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis to justify the deprivation
of liberty (such as when a person is kept in detention after the completion of his or her
sentence, or despite an amnesty law applicable to the detainee, or when a person detained as
a prisoner of war, is kept in detention after the cessation of effective hostilities);
(b) When the deprivation of liberty results from the exercise of the rights or
freedoms guaranteed by articles 7, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20 and 21 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and, insofar as States parties are concerned, by articles 12, 18, 19, 21, 22,
25, 26 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
(c)
When the total or partial non-observance of the international norms relating
to the right to a fair trial, established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in
the relevant international instruments accepted by the State concerned, is of such gravity as
to give the deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character;
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