Recommendation 2106 (2017)

Parliamentary scrutiny over corruption: parliamentary co­operation with the investigative media

Author(s): Parliamentary Assembly

Origin - Assembly debate on 27 June 2017 (22nd Sitting) (see Doc. 14274, report of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media, rapporteur: Ms Gülsün Bilgehan). Text adopted by the Assembly on 27 June 2017 (22nd Sitting).

1. Referring to its Resolution 2171 (2017) parliamentary scrutiny over corruption: parliamentary co-operation with investigative media, and its Resolution 2060 (2015) on improving the protection of whistle-blowers, the Parliamentary Assembly considers that the Council of Europe should provide stronger support for improvements in national legislation relating, on the one hand, to transparency and access to information and, on the other, to the protection of whistle-blowers.

2. Accordingly, the Assembly recommends that the Committee of Ministers task the Steering Committee on Media and Information Society and, possibly, the European Committee on Legal Co-operation with:

2.1. assessing the conformity of national legal provisions on transparency and the right of access to information with the standards set out in the Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents (CETS No. 205), including in order to promote ratification of that convention;

2.2. assessing the conformity of national legal provisions on the protection of whistle-blowers with the principles laid down in Committee of Ministers Recommendation CM/Rec(2014)7 on the protection of whistleblowers;

2.3. identifying the possible needs of member States with a view to developing the exchanges of experience and co-operation activities required to support legislative reform in the fields of the right of access to information and the protection of whistle-blowers.