A/HRC/29/41 As the main speaker, the Special Rapporteur briefed the members about the serious human rights situation in Eritrea, which is causing a stream of refugees to leave the country. E. Participation at the fifty-sixth ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights 13. The Human Rights Council has encouraged special procedures mandate holders to establish and maintain contacts with regional human rights mechanisms working on issues related to their mandate to ensure exchanges of information, coordination and mutual support in common areas of work. 1 In addition, in January 2012, the special procedures mandate holders of the Council and of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted a road map to enhance their collaboration following a meeting in Addis Ababa. They agreed to regularly and systematically exchange information, consider joint actions, including country visits, public statements, press releases and awareness-raising occasions, and participate in each other’s events and thematic research. 2 14. In the light of the foregoing, the Special Rapporteur attended the opening ceremony and the first three days of the fifty-sixth ordinary session of the Commission, which was held in Banjul from 21 April to 7 May 2015. 15. The Special Rapporteur also participated in a panel discussion on freedom of expression in Eritrea on 21 April 2015, during which the plights of the 18 journalists arrested in September 2001 and other journalists were highlighted. Following the panel discussion, the Commission’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa launched a report entitled The Erosion of the Rule of Law in Eritrea: Silencing Freedom of Expression.3 The authors of the report deplored the state of freedom of expression specifically, and the rule of law generally, in Eritrea. The Special Rapporteur also took the opportunity to brief different special mechanisms of the Commission on the human rights situation in Eritrea. IV. Updates on the situation of human rights in Eritrea A. Coming into force of new laws 16. The Special Rapporteur would like to commend the Government of Eritrea for the coming into force of the following laws: the Civil Code, the Penal Code, the Code of Civil Procedure and the Code of Criminal Procedure. Those laws had remained in “transitional mode” since de facto independence in 1991.4 17. The Civil Code is the general law that governs persons and family relations, as well as property rights, obligations and contracts, and extra-contractual liability in Eritrea. For example, it regulates marriage, including the minimum age of marriage and the compulsory nature of registering marriage contracts. The Code of Civil Procedure is a procedural law that sets out the rules and standards that courts use in the adjudication of civil cases. 1 2 3 4 Manual of Operations of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council (2008). Available from www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/SP/Pages/Introduction.aspx. See www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/SP/SP_UNHRC_ACHPRRoad%20Map.pdf. See www.pulp.up.ac.za/pdf/2015_01/2015_01.pdf. See www.shabait.com/news/local-news/19792-goe-puts-into-effect-civil-and-penal-codes-andassociated-procedures. 5