Print
See related documents
Reply to Recommendation | Doc. 13579 | 10 July 2014
Tackling discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity
1. The Committee of Ministers has carefully
examined Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 2021 (2013) on “Tackling
discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity”,
which it has transmitted to the Steering Committee for Human Rights
(CDDH) for information and possible comments.
2. The Committee of Ministers recently conducted a review of
the implementation of its Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)5 on measures
to combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender
identity (paragraph 5.1 of the Assembly recommendation), which reflected
different views among member States. In this context, member States
were encouraged to continue their efforts to implement the various
provisions of the recommendation and to translate and disseminate
it as widely as possible. The Committee of Ministers also encouraged
the organisation, upon request from member States, of assistance
and capacity building activities to facilitate implementation of
the recommendation. Finally, it agreed, in the light of the conclusions
of the CDDH report, to revert to the issue of the implementation
of the provisions of the recommendation in four years’ time.
3. The Committee of Ministers further recalls that the European
Convention on Human Rights provides for protection against discrimination
on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity in accordance
with its general anti-discrimination provision (Article 14), and
that States Parties enjoy a margin of appreciation, subject to the
supervisory jurisdiction of the Court.
4. The Committee of Ministers notes that a pilot LGBT project
(2011-2013) financed by voluntary contributions has been carried
out in six beneficiary member States (Albania, Italy, Latvia, Montenegro, Poland,
Serbia), in order to support them in their efforts to combat discrimination
on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. These six member
States were supported bilaterally with tailor-made assistance, awareness-raising
and capacity building measures. Assistance was also provided for
reviewing national legislation. In addition, a number of combined
multilateral activities were organised in order to share information,
experiences and good practices between the beneficiary countries.
The results of the pilot project will be analysed.
5. The Committee of Ministers observes that the European Commission
against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) has decided that, in the course
of its 5th round country monitoring, LGBT issues will be addressed
if they are relevant to the overall thrust of the analysis of the
situation in a member State, where they occur under one of the common
topics (topics that will be examined in all reports), such as hate
speech or violence. The Committee has been informed that ECRI has
used the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights’ LGBT survey
as a source of information for the drafting of two recent reports
(paragraph 5.7 of the Assembly recommendation).
6. The Committee of Ministers wishes to assure the Parliamentary
Assembly that effective implementation of the Court’s judgments
is a priority in all fields, including judgments concerning discrimination
on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity (paragraph
5.8 of the Assembly recommendation). In its supervision of the implementation
of judgments, it pays particular attention to the adoption of general
measures to prevent further violations. In this context, the Committee
of Ministers has considered and expressed its concern about legislation
prohibiting the so-called propaganda of non‑traditional sexual relations
amongst minors (paragraph 5.2 of the Assembly recommendation). It
has also made reference to the Venice Commission’s opinion on the subject.
7. The Committee of Ministers notes that both Article 10 of the
European Convention on Human Rights and Article 13 of the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child may be of relevance
to these issues, subject to their respective convention conditions.
8. The Committee of Ministers wishes to inform the Parliamentary
Assembly that the Council of Europe’s work against homophobia and
transphobia, in particular in the fields mentioned in the Assembly recommendation,
has been intensified in recent years (paragraph 5.4 of the Assembly
recommendation). The issue of non-discrimination on the grounds
of sexual orientation and gender identity has also been mainstreamed
to a larger extent in those fields (paragraph 5.3). The Committee
notes that the No Hate Speech Movement has organised Europe-wide
online action around hate speech targeting Roma, LGBT people, religious
communities, national minorities, migrants and refugees. Within
the framework of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS),
a good practice handbook on LGBT inclusion in sport has been elaborated
and a conference on combatting homophobia in sports was organised
in 2012.
9. With respect to paragraph 5.5 of the Assembly recommendation,
the Committee of Ministers notes that in the framework of the Help
project, the online anti-discrimination training for lawyers, judges
and prosecutors includes a specific module on LGBT. This module
will be adapted to the national curricula for the training of law enforcement
authorities upon request from member States.
10. The Committee of Ministers recalls that each Council of Europe
convention is elaborated and negotiated in a specific context by
the relevant expert committee within its particular field of competence.
These committees work on the basis of terms of reference given to
them by the Committee of Ministers, which are broad enough to allow
the experts to arrive at a result taking all aspects of the problem
they are addressing into consideration. For this reason, the Committee
of Ministers currently sees no need for taking a general decision
to include sexual orientation and gender identity as a prohibited
ground for discrimination in all future relevant conventions (paragraph
5.6 of the Assembly recommendation), and will deal with this issue
on a case-by-case basis.