“Article 192(1) of the Constitution and Article 12 (2) of the enabling law state that the Human Rights Defender is elected for a 6-year term. The enabling law does not limit the number of times that the Human Rights Defender can be re-elected. The HRDA indicated that in follow up to the previous SCA recommendation, it has advocated for constitutional amendments to limit the possibility of re-election of the Human Rights Defender and to consider changing the term of office from 6 to a 7-year term.

As a proven practice, the SCA encourages a term of between 3 and 7 years. To promote institutional independence, the SCA is of the view that it would be preferable for such term of office to be limited to one re-appointment.

The SCA recommends that the HRDA advocates for an amendment to its enabling legal framework to provide that the term of office of the Human Rights Defender is renewable once.

The SCA refers to Paris Principle B.3 and to its General Observation 2.2 (c) on ‘Full-time members of an NHRI’.”