United Nations Human Rights Council Forum on minority issues 8th Session November 24-25, 2015 “Minorities in the system of criminal justice” Topic 5, November 25, 2015: “Elimination of fundamental reasons for discrimination during the administration of justice” SPEECH Larissa Semjonova, Deputy Director, Legal Information Centre for Human Rights Dear Chairman! Dear organizers and participants of the Forum! My name is Larissa Semjonova and I am representing the Legal Information Centre for Human Rights (Estonia). I am grateful for this opportunity to participate and deliver a speech at this important and distinguished event. My organization supports the draft Recommendations at large. Our recommendations accompanied by the explanatory note have been prepared on the basis of the said draft and submitted to the Secretariat of the Forum. However, in the course of ongoing hearings I find it necessary to provide additional explanatory remarks to draw the attention to the gravity of the problem. Estonia is a multinational and multicultural state. A lot of measures have been taken for developing and diversifying the cultural heritage. Nevertheless, in light of the topic being discussed here, Estonia lacks state institution monitoring the observance of national, ethnical, linguistic and religious minority rights in all spheres of life, including the system of criminal justice. National minorities constitute one third of the country’s population while their representatives amount to slightly more than 3 % in the public sector, including the Ministry of Justice and its subordinated bodies administrating justice. And this happens while almost 60 % of prisoners speak Russian as their native language. There are practically no non-governmental organizations monitoring non-discrimination and equal treatment during the administration of criminal justice in Estonia. Given that it can hardly be estimated whether current situation in jails is caused by criminalization of national minorities, unfair treatment during the administration of justice, or both.