UN High Commissioner for Human Rights moves plea on CAA in SC, India says no foreign party has any locus standi

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, is set to move the Supreme Court, seeking to intervene as amicus curie in the hearing on the petitions challenging the constitutionality of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

New Delhi strongly reacted to the rare move by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stating that no foreign party had any locus standi on issues pertaining to the sovereignty of India.

Jeria informed India's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva late on Monday about the imminent move by her office to file the application for intervention in the Supreme Court in New Delhi.

“The CAA is an internal matter of India and concerns the sovereign right of the Indian Parliament to make laws,” Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said, reacting to the move by the chief of the UN Human Rights Council. “We strongly believe that no foreign party has any locus standi on issues pertaining to India’s sovereignty.”

Several individuals and organizations have already moved the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the CAA, which turned into law in December 2019 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Government got it passed by both Houses of Parliament.

The CAA ensures citizenship to people of six non-Muslim communities – Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist and Christian – if they had to migrate to India from Muslim-majority Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh on or before December 31, 2014, to escape “persecution on the ground of religion”.

The new law triggered widespread protests across the country.

The Supreme Court had on December 18 last year sought response from the Union Government on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the new citizenship law.

The UN body seeks to “assist the Court, in examining the compatibility of the CAA with India's Constitution, in light of India's obligations under the international human rights law”.

“We are clear that the CAA is constitutionally valid and complies with all requirements of our constitutional values. It is reflective of our long-standing national commitment in respect of human rights issues arising from the tragedy of the Partition of India,” Kumar, the MEA spokesperson, said in New Delhi on Tuesday, reacting to the move by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Jeria is likely to argue in her petition to the Supreme Court that the examination of the CAA by the court was of substantial interest to her, considering its potential implications for the application and interpretation of India's international human rights obligations, including the right to equality before the law and the prohibition of discrimination as well as its impact on the protection of human rights of migrants, including refugees.

Her plea to the Supreme Court will underline that all migrants regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, nationality or immigration status enjoy human rights and are entitled to protection.

She will argue that the principle of non-discrimination, as well as that of equality before the law and equal protection before the law without discrimination, are firmly anchored in international human rights instruments and form the foundation of the rule of law. “In accordance with these principles, it is an essential obligation of the states to eradicate discrimination in the public and private spheres. The right to equality before the law is to protect from arbitrary and unjustified differential treatment by the authorities,” she seeks to argue before the court.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is set to refer to the core international human rights treaties to which India was a “state party”, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), International Covenant on Economic Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), International Covenant on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

“Without prejudice to the power of States to establish migration policies as a manifestation of their sovereignty, including measures in favour of migrants that may be subject to persecution and other serious human rights violations/ irreparable harm in their countries of origin or previous residence, States must ensure migration governance measures are in accordance with international human rights law, including the right to equality before the law, equal protection of the law and the right to non-discrimination and the absolute and the non-derogable principle of non-refoulment..,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights will submit before the Supreme Court.