Extraordinary General Assembly 2020

Background

Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the GANHRI 2020 Annual Meeting, including the General Assembly, which was scheduled to take place in Geneva, in March, was cancelled and postponed to a later date.

In July 2020, GANHRI initiated discussions with OHCHR-NIRMS for the organisation of an annual virtual meeting in replacement of the face-to-face meeting, as the current global health pandemic continue to impose severe travel restrictions and constraints to meetings in person.

On 31 August 2020, Dr Carlos Alfonso Negret Mosquera ended its national term as Ombudsman of Colombia and thus also his position as GANHRI Chairperson. The regional network of the Americas (RINDHCA), had in the meantime appointed on 15 July 2020, Dr Freddy Carrión Intriago, Ombudsman of Ecuador, as candidate for the position of GANHRI Chairperson. Also, new or renewed Bureau members have been appointed by respectively the Asia-Pacific and African regional networks in 2019.

Objectives of the Extraordinary General Assembly

Against this backdrop and considering the urgency of securing timely and smooth transition to the new Chairperson, the Bureau decided to proceed with the organisation of the Extraordinary General Assembly (EGA) to be held electronically.

Agenda of the EGA

• Election of the appointed Chairperson, Dr Freddy Carrión Intriago, Ombudsman of Ecuador
• Ratification of the new Bureau members appointed by their respective regional networks:
  • Asia-Pacific: Choi Young-ae (National Human Rights Commission of Korea)
  • Africa: Mohammed Fayek (National Council for Human Rights Egypt), Mwamba Mushikonke Mwamus (Commission Nationale de Droit de l’Homme de la République Démocratique du Congo), Marie-Claire Mukasine (National Commission for Human Rights Rwanda), John R. Walters (Ombudsman of Namibia)

Format and logistics

The EGA will be held on the online voting platform ElectionRunner and will be structured in the following way:

• 19 October: link with login credentials for the voting platform received by voting members [1]
• 19-26 October: voting members can cast their vote
• 26 October: voting is closed

Voting members will be able to vote from any device (personal computer, smartphone, tablet). On the opening of the voting day you will receive an email with the login instructions for your voting session.

In order to ensure a smooth election process, we kindly ask you to indicate the email address we shall use to notify the unique link for the elections to: Joana Sabra j.sabra@ganhri.org.

In case you require special assistance for the voting, please contact us at j.sabra@ganhri.org and we can arrange an alternate option for participating in the EGA.

For more details and instructions on how to login to the voting platform, please read the attached logistic note.

[1] According to art. 1 of the GANHRI Statute, voting members are NHRIs with ‘A’ status accreditation. Please refer to GANHRI Statute.