Overview of the Document
Document title:
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Abbreviation:
ICCPR
Article concerned:
Article 2, paragraph 3
Original text:
3. Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes:
(a) To ensure that any person whose rights or freedoms as herein recognized are violated shall have an effective remedy, notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity;
(b) To ensure that any person claiming such a remedy shall have his right thereto determined by competent judicial, administrative or legislative authorities, or by any other competent authority provided for by the legal system of the State, and to develop the possibilities of judicial remedy;
(c) To ensure that the competent authorities shall enforce such remedies when granted.
Adopting body:
United Nations General Assembly
Year adopted:
1966
Year of entry into force:
1976
Relationship with Japan:
Japan ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1979.
Type of document:
International human rights treaty
Source of acquisition:
Confirmed through the website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights（OHCHR）and publicly available materials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
Format published:
Original , summary, and explanation of its relationship to this case
Original source document:
Skip to PDF contentAbout Article 2, Paragraph 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Article 2, paragraph 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the right to an effective remedy when rights or freedoms under the Covenant are violated.
This provision does not merely confirm that rights exist.
It requires States parties to ensure that, when a violation of rights occurs, the person affected can obtain a remedy for that violation.
What is particularly important is that the provision expressly requires an effective remedy even where the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.
In this case, the actions or responses of public authorities, namely the Sukagawa City Council and Sukagawa City, are at issue. Therefore, the relationship with Article 2, paragraph 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is important.
Facts Confirmed by This Document
This document is the text of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights itself.
Article 2 of the Covenant is a basic provision that sets out how States parties must respect and ensure the rights recognized in the Covenant.
Article 2, paragraph 3, addressed in this article, establishes the obligation to ensure an effective remedy when rights or freedoms under the Covenant are violated.
Article 2, paragraph 3（a）requires each State party to ensure that any person whose rights or freedoms recognized in the Covenant are violated shall have an effective remedy.
What is important here is that the provision expressly states that an effective remedy must be ensured even where the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.
In other words, even where a rights violation is committed by public officials, administrative organs, legislative organs, local public entities, local assemblies, or other persons or bodies in public positions, it is not excluded from the scope of remedy.
Article 2, paragraph 3（b）requires that the right of any person claiming such a remedy be determined by competent judicial, administrative, or legislative authorities, or by any other competent authority provided for by the domestic legal system, and that the possibilities of judicial remedy be developed.
This indicates that remedies are not limited to courts alone. Administrative or legislative authorities may also, depending on the case, be positioned as bodies involved in remedy.
Article 2, paragraph 3（c）requires that competent authorities enforce such remedies when granted.
Accordingly, Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant is not limited to confirming the existence of rights violations. It includes effective remedies, determination of the right to seek a remedy, and enforcement of remedies.
In this case, the recommendations for resignation adopted before judgment raise issues in relation to the presumption of innocence under Article 14, paragraph 2 of the Covenant.
On that basis, the question is whether, after 2025, when the person concerned requested review and correction from Sukagawa City and the Sukagawa City Council, any substantive remedy was provided.
In this respect, Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant is a central norm for examining this case not only in relation to the past recommendations for resignation, but also in relation to the later requests for correction, petitions, legal consultations, and responses of the City and the Council.
Important Entries
What is particularly important in this document is that Article 2, paragraph 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights expressly provides for an effective remedy against rights violations.
The Covenant is not a treaty that merely lists rights.
It imposes on States parties an obligation to ensure that, where rights or freedoms under the Covenant are violated, the person affected can obtain an effective remedy.
Article 2, paragraph 3（a）provides that any person whose rights or freedoms recognized in the Covenant are violated must have an effective remedy.
What is particularly important in this provision is that it requires an effective remedy even where the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.
In this case, the actors whose conduct is at issue are not private individuals.
The first and second recommendations for resignation were adopted by the Sukagawa City Council, the deliberative organ of a local public entity.
The requests for correction, petitions, legal consultations, and responses after 2025 also involved public authorities, namely Sukagawa City and the Sukagawa City Council.
Accordingly, this case should be examined as an issue of rights violations by persons acting in an official capacity, or of remedies for such violations, within the meaning of Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant.
Article 2, paragraph 3（b）provides that the right of a person claiming a remedy must be determined by competent judicial, administrative, or legislative authorities.
What should be noted here is that the provision expressly refers not only to judicial authorities, but also to administrative and legislative authorities as bodies that may be involved in remedies.
In other words, remedies under the Covenant are not limited to courts alone.
Administrative and legislative authorities, as competent authorities, may in some cases be required to make determinations, conduct review, or provide responses to claims of rights violations.
In this case, the Sukagawa City Council itself was the body that had adopted the past recommendations for resignation.
Thereafter, in 2025, a petition was submitted seeking review and corrective measures concerning the constitutional issues and issues under the Covenant arising from those recommendations.
In such a situation, the question arises whether it was sufficient for the Sukagawa City Council simply to explain that, under the petition system, there was no automatic duty to take action, or whether it should have conducted some substantive review or explanation in relation to Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant.
Sukagawa City is also questioned as to how it treated the alleged unconstitutionality and treaty-based issues in the 2025 request and response.
Article 2, paragraph 3（c）requires that, where remedies are granted, competent authorities enforce them.
This indicates that remedies must not remain merely formal responses or abstract explanations. They must actually lead to correction of the rights violation.
Accordingly, Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant is important in this case not only for examining the recommendations for resignation adopted between 2011 and 2012, but also for examining the requests for correction, petitions, legal consultations, responses by the City and Council, refusal to review, or merely formal handling after 2025.
Questions Raised by This Document
1. If there was a violation of rights under the Covenant, is no remedy required?
Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant requires States parties to ensure that any person whose rights or freedoms recognized in the Covenant are violated shall have an effective remedy.
Accordingly, where an issue arises in relation to the presumption of innocence under Article 14, paragraph 2 of the Covenant, it cannot simply be left as a “past issue.”
When a rights violation is alleged, the question is how competent authorities receive the allegation, how they examine it, and what remedy or corrective measure they provide.
In this case, review and correction were later requested concerning recommendations for resignation adopted before judgment.
Therefore, in relation to Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant, it is necessary to examine whether Sukagawa City and the Sukagawa City Council ensured an effective remedy.
2. Are violations by public authorities also subject to remedy?
Article 2, paragraph 3（a）of the Covenant requires that an effective remedy be ensured even where the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.
This point is particularly important in relation to this case.
The recommendations for resignation at issue in this case were not statements by private individuals.
They were public expressions of intent made by the Sukagawa City Council, the deliberative organ of a local public entity.
The requests for correction, petitions, legal consultations, and responses after 2025 were also responses by public authorities, namely Sukagawa City and the Sukagawa City Council.
Accordingly, the fact that the acts were those of public authorities is not a reason to exclude them from the scope of remedy.
Rather, Article 2, paragraph 3 expressly provides that an effective remedy must be ensured even where the violation is committed by persons acting in an official capacity.
3. Is it sufficient to say that the person should file a lawsuit?
In 2025 internal council materials, an opinion was recorded to the effect that, if the petitioner was not satisfied, he should file a lawsuit.
However, Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant provides that the right of a person claiming a remedy should be determined by competent judicial, administrative, or legislative authorities, or by any other competent authority provided for by the domestic legal system.
In other words, remedies are not limited to courts alone.
Judicial remedies are, of course, important.
However, when an administrative or legislative authority receives a claim of rights violation, it cannot simply avoid substantive review or explanation by leaving everything to litigation.
This is particularly so in this case because the Sukagawa City Council itself was the body that had adopted the past recommendations for resignation.
When a petition later seeking review and correction is submitted to that same council, the question arises what kind of review, explanation, or response the council should have provided.
4. Does the absence of an automatic duty under the petition system negate the issue of effective remedy?
In this case, it has been explained that petitions of this kind are different from formal petitions and do not automatically require the council to take any particular action.
However, in relation to Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant, the issue is not limited to the formal effect of a petition under the domestic system.
The issue is whether a person who alleged violations of rights under the Covenant and sought review and correction was given an effective remedy, or at least an opportunity for substantive review.
Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties（VCLT）provides that a party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.
Accordingly, the domestic explanation that the petition system imposes no automatic duty to act does not by itself avoid the issue of effective remedy under Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant.
5. Can a merely formal response be regarded as an effective remedy?
Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant requires that an effective remedy be ensured.
The remedy referred to here is not limited to a merely formal response or an abstract explanation.
A claim of rights violation must be substantively examined and, where necessary, lead to correction, prevention of recurrence, explanation, apology, correction of records, or other appropriate measures.
In this case, after 2025, Sukagawa City and the Sukagawa City Council were asked to review and correct the past recommendations for resignation.
If they responded only with general explanations of systems or formal responses, without substantively examining the past decisions, the question arises whether such handling can be regarded as an effective remedy under Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant.
6. Are current institutions exempt from reviewing past recommendations for resignation?
The recommendations for resignation in this case were adopted between 2011 and 2012.
However, in relation to Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant, the issue is what opportunity for remedy or correction is currently available for alleged rights violations that occurred in the past.
In 2025, requests were made to Sukagawa City and the Sukagawa City Council seeking review and correction of the constitutional issues and issues under the Covenant arising from the past recommendations for resignation.
Accordingly, the fact that the matter concerns “past council decisions” does not mean that the current council or City need not conduct any review.
Rather, where past official expressions of intent remain as public records and continue to affect the person’s honor, dignity, political participation, and social reputation, the issue becomes how current institutions should review, explain, and correct them.
7. Can the failure to provide a remedy itself create a further problem?
Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant establishes the obligation to ensure an effective remedy.
Accordingly, where a violation of rights under the Covenant is alleged but no effective remedy is provided, the failure to provide a remedy itself becomes a further issue.
This point is also important in General Comment No. 31 of the Human Rights Committee.
General Comment No. 31 indicates that the failure to provide a remedy may itself constitute a separate violation of the Covenant.
In this case, the issue is not limited to the past recommendations for resignation.
The later requests for correction, petitions, legal consultations, and responses of the City and the Council after 2025 are also at issue.
Accordingly, this case must be examined not only as a problem of past violation of the presumption of innocence, but also as a problem of whether an effective remedy was later provided and whether the problem was continued or fixed in place by the failure to provide a remedy.
Relevant Laws, Treaties, and International Standards
International Human Rights Treaties
Article 2, paragraph 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
This provision establishes the obligation to ensure that a person whose rights or freedoms under the Covenant have been violated shall have an effective remedy. It is the central norm of this article.
Article 14, paragraph 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
This provision establishes the presumption of innocence. In this case, the recommendations for resignation adopted before judgment raise issues in relation to this provision.
Article 14, paragraph 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
This provision establishes the right to a fair trial. The issue is how public assumptions of guilt before judgment relate to the fairness of the criminal trial.
Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
This provision concerns political participation. The issue is how repeated recommendations for resignation against an elected council member and subsequent responses affected political status and council activities.
General Comments
General Comment No. 31, paragraph 15:
This paragraph explains effective remedies under Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant, including appropriate compensation, restitution where necessary, and measures to prevent recurrence. It is important in examining the content of remedies in this case.
General Comment No. 31, paragraph 16:
This paragraph indicates that failure to investigate allegations of violations, or failure to bring perpetrators to justice, may itself give rise to a separate breach of the Covenant. It is important in relation to refusal to review or merely formal handling in this case.
General Comment No. 32, paragraph 30:
This paragraph explains the presumption of innocence and states that all public authorities should refrain from prejudging the outcome of a trial. It is important in relation to the first and second recommendations for resignation in this case.
Standards Concerning Treaty Performance and Interpretation
Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties:
This provision states that every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith. It is important in relation to the duty to faithfully implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties:
This provision states that a party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty. The issue is whether the absence of an automatic duty under the petition system, the absence of legal binding force of recommendations for resignation, or the fact that the matter concerns internal handling by a local assembly can justify leaving issues under Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant unexamined.
Domestic Law
Article 13 of the Constitution of Japan:
This provision concerns respect for the individual, personal rights, honor, and social reputation. It is necessary to examine how the past recommendations for resignation and subsequent responses affected the person’s personal interests.
Article 16 of the Constitution of Japan:
This provision concerns the right of petition. The issue is whether general explanations concerning the petition system were sufficient to address the issue of review and correction of rights violations.
Article 31 of the Constitution of Japan:
This provision concerns due process. The recommendations for resignation before judgment, and the later refusal to review or merely formal handling, raise issues in relation to due process.
Article 37 of the Constitution of Japan:
This provision concerns the right to a fair trial by an impartial court. It is necessary to examine how public assumptions of guilt before judgment and the later failure to provide a remedy relate to the fairness of the criminal trial.
Article 98, paragraph 2 of the Constitution of Japan:
This provision requires that treaties concluded by Japan and established laws of nations be faithfully observed. It is important in relation to the domestic significance of the Covenant and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Article 99 of the Constitution of Japan:
This provision establishes the duty of public officials to respect and uphold the Constitution. The issue is how local council members, heads of local public entities, and officials should respect constitutional and treaty-based human rights guarantees.
Article 89, paragraphs 1 to 3 of the Local Autonomy Act:
These provisions position a local assembly as a deliberative organ composed of members elected by residents, and provide for the powers of the assembly and the faithful performance of duties by council members. They are important in examining how a council should review and explain its own past official expressions of intent when constitutional and Covenant-based issues are later raised.
Relationship to This Case
The issue in this case is not limited to the recommendations for resignation adopted between 2011 and 2012.
Nor is it limited to whether a guilty judgment later became final.
What is important in relation to Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant is whether an effective remedy was provided when violations of rights under the Covenant were alleged.
In this case, the first recommendation for resignation was adopted on October 26, 2011, before indictment, while the person concerned was in detention and absent from the plenary session.
The second recommendation for resignation was adopted on December 1, 2011, before the first hearing and before judgment, after the person concerned had left the chamber.
These recommendations for resignation raise issues as pre-judgment public assumptions of guilt in relation to the presumption of innocence under Article 14, paragraph 2 of the Covenant.
However, this case does not end there.
After 2025, the person concerned requested Sukagawa City and the Sukagawa City Council to review and correct the constitutional issues and issues under the Covenant arising from the past recommendations for resignation.
Accordingly, in this case, in addition to the past recommendations for resignation themselves, the later requests for correction, petitions, legal consultations, responses by the City and Council, refusal to review, or merely formal handling after 2025 are also at issue.
Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant requires that a person whose rights or freedoms under the Covenant have been violated be ensured an effective remedy.
It also provides that an effective remedy must be ensured even where the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.
In this case, the body that adopted the past recommendations for resignation was the Sukagawa City Council.
The bodies that responded to the requests for correction and petitions after 2025 were Sukagawa City and the Sukagawa City Council.
Accordingly, this case should be examined as an issue of rights violations by public authorities or remedies for such violations, as contemplated by Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant.
What is particularly important is what substantive review the Sukagawa City Council conducted when the constitutional issues and issues under the Covenant were later raised, despite the fact that the council itself had adopted the past recommendations for resignation.
At the 2025 Caucus Representatives’ Meeting, it was organized that the legal interpretation would be consulted with the City’s legal counsel and that the handling of the petition would be discussed by the Council Steering Committee.
On the other hand, opinions were also recorded to the effect that the matter seemed to exceed the scope of what the council should decide, and that, if the petitioner was not satisfied, he should file a lawsuit.
However, in relation to Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant, the question is whether it is sufficient merely to say that the petitioner should file a lawsuit or that there is no automatic duty to take action under the petition system.
Remedies are not limited to courts alone.
Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant contemplates that the right to seek a remedy may be determined by competent judicial, administrative, or legislative authorities.
Accordingly, when a local assembly or city receives an allegation of a violation of rights under the Covenant, it is necessary to examine whether ending the response with only a formal explanation of the domestic system can be regarded as an effective remedy.
It is also at issue whether, in the 2025 responses of the City side and the Council side, the unconstitutionality or treaty-based issues of the past recommendations for resignation were substantively examined.
If no substantive review was conducted and no corrective measures were taken, the past issue of violation of the presumption of innocence may be evaluated as continuing or being fixed in place up to the present.
This point is important in relation to Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant and General Comment No. 31.
General Comment No. 31 explains the content of effective remedies and indicates that the failure to investigate or provide a remedy may itself give rise to a separate violation of the Covenant.
Accordingly, in this case, in addition to the issue of the presumption of innocence concerning the first and second recommendations for resignation, the later requests for correction, petitions, legal consultations, and responses by the City and the Council should also be examined from the perspective of effective remedy.
Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant is a central norm for positioning this case not merely as an issue of “past recommendations for resignation,” but as an issue of a human rights violation that has not been remedied up to the present.
Related Materials
Related pages
The following core pages are currently available in Japanese only.
Record and Verification of the Case
Record and Verification of the Case, Part 1
Record and Verification of the Case, Part 2
Record and Verification of the Case, Part 3
Record and Verification of the Case, Part 4
Record and Verification of the Case, Part 5
Legal Arguments and Structure of Unconstitutionality and Illegality
Related evidence articles:
Document Distributed in Sukagawa City—Group Calling for the Resignation of Toshio Tsumuraya
Related normative articles:
Related timeline:
April 3, 2025:
Toshio Tsumuraya submitted a request to Sukagawa City seeking redress for human rights violations arising from the resignation recommendation resolutions, and also submitted a petition to the Sukagawa City Council.
April 8, 2025:
On the Sukagawa City Council side, a meeting of the Conference of Faction Representatives was held concerning the petition.
April 19, 2025:
Legal consultations were conducted on the Sukagawa City side and the Sukagawa City Council side concerning the request and the petition.
April 28, 2025:
Sukagawa City issued its final response to the request, stating that the matter had been “properly handled.”