NHRC to organise seminar to raise awareness on CMC elections Monday

National Human Rights Committee (NHRC), in co-operation with the Ministry of Interior (MoI), will organise an awareness seminar Monday titled "Elections... duty and right," in light of the issuance of the decree No 28 of 2023 setting the date for the election of members of the Central Municipal Council (CMC), which falls on June 22, 2023.The seminar will deal with three working papers, as the NHRC's working paper will discuss the constitutional and international standards for the right to free and fair elections. The working paper of the MoI will focus on the legal framework governing the electoral process for CMC members for 2023. The CMC working paper will be an awareness-raising approach to the CMC, its role, and its working mechanisms.The seminar, which begins Monday at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, aims to enhance citizens' participation in electing their representatives in the CMC in the implementation of their rights and duties guaranteed by the Permanent Constitution of Qatar of 2004, the provisions of international human rights conventions to which the state has joined in this field, and in implementation of the Qatar National Vision 2030.In a statement, the committee said that educating the voters on the legal framework governing the election of members of the CMC is one of the components of public awareness of human rights that Qatar has committed to protecting and implementing by its constitutional and international obligations. This awareness of the electoral process is also gaining increasing importance in light of the close connection between human rights under the principle that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated and that they represent the basic enabling elements for sustainable development.According to NHRC, the process of raising citizens' awareness of the importance of the electoral process and the need to participate in it is one of the main tasks of the NHRC, as the right to free and fair elections is one of the human rights that the committee aims to promote and protect by the provisions of Decree-Law No 17 of 2010, organising the NHRC. The NHRC has many functions, including spreading awareness regarding human rights and freedoms and consolidating their principles at the levels of thought and practice, as well as holding and organising conferences, seminars, workshops, and symposiums on topics related to human rights and freedoms and to co-ordinate with authorities concerned in that regard.The seminar will enhance the awareness of citizens in general and voters in particular with the importance of participating in electing the CMC members and ensuring their willingness, preparedness, and their ability to participate by providing the knowledge of the electoral process and the confidence in its suitability and effectiveness in selecting their representatives, as well as supporting the programms and demands that would benefit them.