18 October 2011

SPEECH BY MR MEVLÜT ÇAVUŞOĞLU,

PRESIDENT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY,

AT THE NORWEGIAN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

OSLO, Thursday, 20 October 2011, 10.15 am

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,

It is a real pleasure and great honour for me to take the floor as President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights. The Centre is a leading research institution and at the same time, the Norwegian National Human Rights Institution which actively contributes to various international Human Rights Monitoring Mechanisms, including the Council of Europe’s ones. So, it is natural that in my address I will try to explain to you the priorities of the Parliamentary Assembly in this field. But let me start first with a few more general words about the Council of Europe.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,

As you know, the Council of Europe is the oldest and biggest European institution. It unites practically all the countries of the European Continent – 47 – with the sole exception of Belarus. It covers an incredible variety of cultures, historic legacies, languages, religious beliefs and political systems. Our recipe for building stability is to unite people and promote co-operation around a set of fundamental values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

It is very important to understand that these fundamental values are not the aim in itself, but a means to ensure long-lasting peace and prosperity. Their respect creates a general framework for all human activity and general well-being. Thanks to these principles, and despite existing shortcomings, Europe has lived the most prosperous and peaceful period since the beginning of its history.

In this respect, the Council of Europe model – human rights standard-setting with its own enforcement mechanisms, has been a huge success.

Dear friends,

The foundations of our human rights standard-setting mechanism were laid 60 years ago, with the signing of the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights is an essential element in the convention protection system. In more than 60 years of their existence, the Convention and the Court have helped us achieve a lot: today, the Convention and its additional protocols guarantee a coherent and comprehensive system of protection of human rights, based on most advanced standards. The case-law of the Court forms an integral part of the international human rights law and landmark judgments of the Court are well known by all lawyers specialising in human rights.

Yet, today, the effectiveness of our system of protection of human rights is under threat: the Court is literally flooded with a growing number of applications. The statistics speak for themselves: in 2010, the Court had 120 thousand pending applications; in 2011, their number grew to about 140 thousand! A huge figure!

It is true, that many of the applications coming to the Court are inadmissible, in the light of the admissibility criteria adopted by the Court. But the examination of all applications is a time-consuming exercise. Therefore, it may take years for an admissible case to be examined on the merits – a situation which is unacceptable for those whose rights were violated..

But, I must say, the statistics are only part of the problem. The workload of the Court is likely to grow further if the member states do not address the root causes of the growing number of applications. And these root causes can be found in the domestic legal orders of the member states.

In fact, the Strasbourg supervisory mechanism is ‘subsidiary’ in nature and our Court is not equipped to deal with large-scale abuses of human rights. National Governments and authorities are therefore primarily responsible for the effective implementation of the Convention. This means that effective human rights complaints machinery should exist at the national level.

Today, this is still not a reality in some of our member states. There are too many repetitive applications – some 27,000 according to the President of the Court! These repetitive applications originate from structural problems in the domestic legal systems, leading to numerous repeated violation of the Convention. In our recent report on the Implementation of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, the Assembly identified, in particular, the following problems:

- excessive length of judicial proceedings,

- chronic non-enforcement of domestic judicial decisions,

- deaths and ill-treatment by law enforcement officials and lack of effective investigations into them and

- unlawful or over-long detention on remand.

Moreover, the issue of late execution – or indeed non execution – of Strasbourg Court judgments is a matter of serious concern. To illustrate this, let me give you once again an example based on statistics: at the end of 2000, the Committee of Ministers had 2,300 such cases pending; at the end of 2009, the number stood at over 8,600, of which over 80% concerned repetitive cases. As long as states do not take appropriate general measures necessary for the execution of judgments, systemic problems in domestic legal systems will continue to lead to a growing number of applications.

Dear friends,

I am an optimist and I believe that we have the right tools to address the problems the Strasbourg Court is facing. As you know, within the framework of the overall reform of the Council of Europe, our Organisation is engaged in the reform of the European Court of Human Rights. In 2010, a ministerial Conference held under the Swiss Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers adopted a Declaration and an Action Plan proposing a number of reform measures. The implementation of this Action Plan is known today as the Interlaken process.

Since Interlaken, the reform of the Court has been high on the agenda of the subsequent Chairmanships of the Committee of Minsters: in 2011, within the framework of the Turkish Chairmanship, we held a follow-up Conference in Izmir, which allowed us to make an interim evaluation of the results of the Interlaken process, as well as update the Action Plan. The reform of the Court also became a shared priority of the current Ukrainian and forthcoming United Kingdom and Albanian Chairmanships of the Committee of Minsters.

The Assembly, for its part, has been following closely the Interlaken process as well. In Resolution 1726 that it adopted on this subject it insisted that the processes should take into account, in particular: the need to strengthen implementation of Convention rights at the national level; the improvement of the effectiveness of domestic remedies in states with major structural problems, and the need to rapidly and fully execute the judgments of the Court.

And, in our work, we are specifically focusing on the role of national parliaments in this process. During our 2011 June part-session we held a debate on the role of national parliaments in guaranteeing respect for human rights in Europe. In Resolution 1826 we recommended that national parliaments should rigorously and systematically verify the compatibility of draft and existing legislation with the Convention’s standards, and ensure effective domestic remedies. In the preparation of this report, we studied the experiences of many European parliaments in this field. Good practice examples, for instance, from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, and Romania, are highlighted in this report.

Moreover, the Assembly and national parliaments also have a responsibility for rapid and effective implementation of Strasbourg Court judgments. The Committee of Ministers, which holds the principal responsibility for the supervision of the execution of the Court’s judgments, has itself acknowledged the benefit of greater parliamentary involvement. And in our recent Resolution 1787 on the implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, the Assembly suggested a number of concrete measures for national parliaments to take in this respect. In particular, we called upon the chairpersons of national parliamentary delegations of member states where the problem of non-execution is particularly acute – together, if need be, with the relevant ministers – to present to the Assembly the results achieved in solving the problems they are facing. I, as President of the Assembly, have asked the chairpersons of the parliamentary delegations concerned to provide me with information on follow-up given by national parliaments.

Dear friends,

As you probably know, the European Union is currently in the process of negotiating its accession to the European Convention of Human Rights. This is a very important project for the Council of Europe – the accession of the EU to our Convention will guarantee a coherent and comprehensive system of protection of human rights for the whole Europe. The Assembly is also actively engaged in consultations with the European Parliament on the issue of accession. As a result, we have reached agreement on a fundamental issue: that of participation of the representatives of the European Parliament in the sittings of the Parliamentary Assembly and its relevant bodies when the Assembly elects judges onto the European Court of Human Rights.

According to our agreement, a European Parliament delegation, of a size equal to that of the biggest national parliamentary delegations (18 members), will participate in the election of judges by the Parliamentary Assembly. I do not want to enter now in the details of this very complex arrangement. But, I can assure you that we managed to solve this difficult and technically complicated matter in a most satisfactory manner!

But there is still one important step which must be taken. As soon as the intergovernmental negotiations have been completed, this arrangement will need to be approved by the Assembly and the European Parliament in accordance with our respective internal procedures. Given our constructive dialogue and co-operation, I am confident that we will be able to achieve this within the shortest deadlines possible.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,

The strengthening of the European mechanisms of protection of human rights and the reform of the Strasbourg Court are important challenges we have to face today. But there are many others, and, if you are not too much bored with me, allow me to conclude my speech by sharing with you some thoughts about another major challenge our societies have to face today – that is, “living together”.

As you know, today, new challenges to the European multi-cultural model are emerging: the lack of inter-cultural and inter-ethnic interaction leads to misunderstandings, lack of trust, prejudice and discrimination. Even worse, discrimination and prejudice leads to intolerance, extremism and xenophobia and, as we have recently seen in many places in Europe – to terrorism.

This summer, the whole world was shocked by the terrorist attacks in Oslo and in Utoya and I would like to express, once again, sympathy to the Norwegian people, on behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly as well as in my personal capacity.

Our response to extremism should be a truly intercultural approach, which allows culturally different groups within society to interact. In this context, I would like to praise the Norwegian authorities and Prime Minister Stoltenberg, in particular, for their approach: the most efficient response to extremism is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation! The Council of Europe and our Parliamentary Assembly stand ready to provide your authorities with full support in this task.

As some of you may know, in May this year, at the initiative of the Council of Europe Secretary General Torbjørn Jagland and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the Council of Europe produced a report by the Group of eminent persons on “Living together in 21st-century Europe”. The Assembly examined this report during its June part-session and resolved to reflect on ways to overcome the current “crisis of leadership” in Europe; encourage politicians and elected representatives at all levels to speak out on the challenges currently raised by the threats to the European project as well as reflect on the proposal for an annual Forum against extremism.

Moreover, we recommended that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe should consider launching a major “Campaign on living together” in order to promote the principles of tolerance and respect for differences, inter-cultural dialogue and fight against extremism and xenophobia in European societies. I am sure that Norway’s contribution to these activities will be very rich and we are looking forward to working together with you on this front.

Furthermore, I would like to inform you that the Assembly is actively involved in promoting the inter-religious dimension of inter-cultural dialogue. This is not only a key issue for the Assembly, but also a political priority of my mandate as President. In April 2011, we held a very interesting debate on this issue with the participation of representatives of different religions - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish. It was the first time in our history that they were speaking together in the Chamber, sharing their belief that societies can only prosper if we promote respect and mutual understanding between peoples, strengthen solidarity between individuals and communities, as well as reinforce social cohesion. As a result of this debate, we recommended the establishment of a stable platform for dialogue, in order to promote a partnership for democracy and human rights between the Council of Europe, the religious faiths and the main humanist organisations, working closely with our friends from the European Union, the UN Alliance of Civilizations as well as other international partners. I am looking forward to the implementation of this recommendation.

Dear friends,

I might have given you the impression that our work is very much Euro-centered. In fact, this is not the case. “Living together” has an important external dimension: in our today’s globalised and inter-connected world the political processes in our neighbourhood are in the focus of our attention too. In this context, in the face of the revolutionary developments in the Arab world, we were among the first to offer support to all those who would like to build more just societies, both political and social terms, on the basis of the universal values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. We do this through the provision of support in the organisation and observation of democratic elections, as well as through inter-parliamentary co-operation.

In fact, we have developed a special tool to support parliamentarians from neighbouring countries in carrying out democratic reforms. It is called “Partnership for Democracy” with the Parliamentary Assembly. Without offering full membership, this status allows non-member parliamentarians to participate in the work of the Assembly and learn from the wealth of European standards and best practices. But the Partnership status is not about “exporting” our vision of democracy. It is based on a genuine “give – give” approach: by participating in our work, our partner parliamentarians share with us their own experiences which we need so much in order to find, together, shared responses to the challenges we have to face.

In June this year we granted the Partnership status to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Morocco. During the 2011 October part-session, welcomed another new partner in our enlarging Family – the Palestinian National Council. We now actively promote this new status in Tunisia through the provision of support in the organisation of democratic elections as well as their observation. We hope the newly established authorities will soon apply for partnership as well.

But I must stress that the interest in the partnership status is growing not only across the Mediterranean. During the 2011 October part-session, I received in Strasbourg a delegation from the Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic, headed by a Vice-speaker of Parliament who informed me of the Parliament’s decision to apply for the Partnership status. This an important political message which I strongly support. Therefore, we are looking forward to receiving a formal application from the Kyrgyz Parliament, so that we can launch the procedure.

I am sure that the application from the Kyrgyz Parliament will be a good example for other countries from the region. In particular, during my recent visit to Kazakhstan, I actively promoted this status too. And I can tell you that my arguments were positively received!

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,

In my speech, I have tried to highlight for you the priorities and activities of the Parliamentary Assembly in the field of human rights. But, I am sure there are many other issues which you would like to discuss with me. Therefore, I am now looking forward to taking your questions.

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I would like to thank everybody for this most interesting and fruitful exchange of views. I wish you a lot of success with your studies and research projects. Good luck!