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Order 513 (1996)
Rights of national minorities
1. The Assembly refers to its Recommendation 1285 (1996) and to all its previous texts on the protection of national minorities and their rights which has become one of the major assignments of the Council of Europe and is likely to remain so in the near future.
2. The Assembly therefore instructs its Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights:
2.1. to consider the action taken to follow up Recommendation 1285 (1996);
2.2. to closely follow the ratification and implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992), of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1994) and of the European Charter of Local Self-Government;
2.3. to ensure that the advisory committee to be set up by the Committee of Ministers, in accordance with Article 26 of the framework convention, may be as independent, effective and transparent as possible;
2.4. to further examine the ways in which the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages may be most effectively implemented, as well as the other Council of Europe instruments of importance to the protection of national minorities;
2.5. to study, with the help of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), whether it is possible to arrive at a hard core of rights in the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, to be accepted by all contracting states to that charter;
2.6. to closely follow the elaboration, by the Committee of Ministers, of a protocol complementing the European Convention on Human Rights "in the cultural field by provisions guaranteeing individual rights, in particular for persons belonging to national minorities".
3. Furthermore, the Assembly, referring to its Order Nos. 474 (1993), 484 (1993) and 501 (1995), instructs the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to continue its work on minorities, particularly concerning mediation.
4. The Political Affairs Committee and the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Demography should give their opinions on these matters if they deem fit to do so.
5. The Assembly also instructs its competent committees (Political Affairs Committee, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights and Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries) and their rapporteurs to continue taking into account the above-mentioned conventions and charter as well as the draft for an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights on the rights of national minorities, included in Recommendation 1201 (1993), in the procedures on the admission of new member states and the "monitoring" process of the commitments accepted upon accession to the Council of Europe.