Honourable Speaker of the Senate,
Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me a great pleasure to participate in this seminar devoted to the role of parliaments in implementing the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.
First of all, allow me to thank the hosts – our Spanish colleagues – for their kind invitation and hospitality. The Spanish delegation is very active in the Assembly – and I am saying this not only because two of my colleagues in the Presidential Committee come from Spain, but also because we all know that whenever it comes to defending our standards in the Assembly Chamber, we can always count on the support the members of the Spanish delegation.
Today, I would like to thank in particular Mr Beneyto and Mr Conde for their personal involvement in the organisation of our seminar. But, of course, our thanks also go to all members of the Spanish delegation for their support and hospitality, which we have had the chance to experience yesterday during the excellent cultural programme as well as during the dinner.
Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
Let me start by recalling Article 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights which speaks about the obligation to respect human rights: "The high Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and the freedoms defined in Section 1 of the Convention".
This means that each of the 820 million inhabitants living in the 47 member States is protected by the Convention. It is our duty as elected representatives to guarantee that the Convention is applied in our country and, if it is not, that the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights are implemented without delay.
The strengthening of the Council of Europe human rights protection system, as established by the European Convention of Human Rights, is the overriding priority of our Organisation. Non-implementation of the Convention and of the Court judgments threatens the very survival of the Convention system, because it increases the backlog of pending applications and of non-implemented judgments requiring supervision by the Committee of Ministers. As the President of the European Court of Human Rights stressed in his opening remarks at the international conference in Bakou last week: " ..ce volume important d'affaires est souvent lié à l'inexécution de nos arrêts. Ce n'est pas seulement la crédibilité de la Cour qui est affectée par l'inexécution des arrêts, c'est aussi celle du Comité des Ministres".
[..this important body of cases is frequently linked to the non-execution of the our judgments. Non-execution of judgments does not only impinge on the credibility of the Court, but also on that of the Committee of Ministers".]
In the face of this danger, all Council of Europe bodies and institutions must join efforts and our Parliamentary Assembly, consisting of national parliamentarians, has an important role to play in this process. Let me stress that this relates to the international responsibility of States Parties to comply with Strasbourg Court judgments: Parliaments, as well as other branches of power and state bodies, must play their respective roles fully to guarantee the respect of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In this context, let me praise the work of our Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights which is following closely the issue of the role of national parliaments in the implementation of the Strasbourg Court judgments. Since 2000, the Legal Affairs Committee has appointed a Rapporteur on the execution of judgments, whose priority has been to focus on states where there are substantial problems or delays in implementation.
This important work must continue and I would like to stress here the need for all national delegations and authorities of our member states to closely co-operate with the rapporteur and address – in an open and constructive manner – the systemic problems that lay behind repetitive human rights violations and delays in execution of the Court judgments.
At the same time, all national parliaments must create, if I may say so, "effective prevention mechanisms". These include monitoring and oversight mechanisms that enable parliaments to control the activities of the executive relating to the implementation of the Court judgements. These also include mechanisms to scrutinise national legislation to ensure that it is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
There are already some positive examples in this field in a number of national parliaments, notably in the United Kingdom, in the Netherlands, in Germany, in Finland and in Romania – all five of which had set up parliamentary procedures and structures to monitor the implementation of Strasbourg Court judgments. To these can be added more recent initiatives, such as the creation, in February of this year, of a permanent sub-committee for the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights by the Polish Sejm.
However, most parliaments do not appear to have such supervisory mechanisms. Therefore, there is a need to reinforce parliamentary involvement in this respect and we are here today to share our own experiences and identify examples of good practices that could be replicated and further developed.
Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
Parliaments need capacity and expertise to play their role fully in guaranteeing respect of the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights. As you know, in Resolution 1823 (2011), we inter alia proposed putting in place human rights awareness-raising activities for parliamentarians and training for staff of national parliaments.
To date, two seminars have been held for parliamentarians in co-operation with the Parliament of the United Kingdom in October 2013 and the Sejm and Senate of Poland in February 2014. This is our third seminar for parliamentarians and I hope that many more will follow.
I think it is particularly significant that this seminar takes place in Spain because, to the best of my knowledge, the Spanish Parliament has not put in place any specific mechanisms to monitor the execution of the Strasbourg Court judgments. In this context, our discussions today give us the possibility to learn more from Spanish experience, but also to share with our Spanish colleagues the experience of other Parliaments where specific monitoring arrangements exist, so as to make the Spanish domestic system even more effective.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues,
Before I conclude my remarks, allow me to touch briefly upon one more important aspect. As parliamentarians, we have the political responsibility to guarantee that laws we adopt comply with the standards of the ECHR and that all the necessary steps are taken at national level to implement the Strasbourg Courts judgments. To fulfil this political duty effectively, we need to be well briefed on complex issues which require expert knowledge of International Human Rights Law. Therefore, we must be able to rely in our work on the knowledge and expertise of parliamentary staff.
In this context, I believe that we have to address - in our discussions - the question how we could help build up the capacity of our parliamentary staff in the field of European human rights standards. Here too – I am aware – various models and good practice examples exist and I am sure we will be able to bring back home some of those.
So, let me wish us all a very successful working day and, for those who stay longer, a nice week-end in Madrid!
Thank you very much for your attention.