Chief Executive’s Report
Over the past year, Fair Trials International has shown that the most effective way to demonstrate the need to protect the right to a fair trial is to highlight the compelling stories of victims of injustice. In early 2011, four of our clients spoke in the UK Parliament about how their families’ lives had been torn apart by inappropriate use of Europe’s fast-track extradition regime, the European Arrest Warrant. Confronted by the stories of people like Edmond Arapi (p9) the scales fell from the eyes of politicians who are rarely confronted with the human consequences of the laws they enact. Our expert policy team has built on these powerful human stories and shown how effective law enforcement can, and must, go hand-in-hand with justice and human rights. Our concrete proposals for creating a fairer system of extradition within Europe have contributed to a review of the law in the UK and recognition of the need for reform at EU level (p8). In 2010, Fair Trials International also played a key role in the first ever EU procedural rights Directive, which will give all suspects in the EU an enforceable right to translation and interpretation (p14).
4 www.FairTrials.net
33%
of the people who contacted Fair Trials International in 2010 reported being denied access to an interpreter or translation of key documents in Europe.
Since the beginning of 2010, we have received over 600 written requests for help from people all over the world facing charges, with many more contacting us for support and advice over the telephone. We were delighted by the acquittal of Andrew Symeou in Greece (previous page) and Alan Rae in Peru (p17). Although we had hoped for his conviction to be quashed, we were also pleased that our long-standing client, Patrick Malluzzo, was at least transferred to the UK this year and reunited with his family after seven years in appalling prison conditions in India (p19).
In the year ahead we will continue our work to raise standards of justice in Europe and our policy and campaigns work will start to reach beyond the EU. The direct assistance we provide to people arrested abroad will also remain a core part of what we do and we will continue to develop tools to enable us to reach many more vulnerable people facing an uncertain future far from home (p6). Jago Russell Chief Executive Fair Trials International