ADDRESS BY MR MEVLÜT ÇAVUŞOĞLU,

PRESIDENT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE,

ON THE OCCASION OF THE HIGH LEVEL CONFERENCE ON THE FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS,

INTERLAKEN, SWITZERLAND, 18-19 FEBRUARY 2010

(Interlaken, 18 February 2010, 15h45)

Madam Chairperson of the Committee of Ministers,

Mr Secretary General,

Mr President of the European Court of Human Rights,

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a pleasure for me to address you today – as President of the Parliamentary Assembly – at the opening of this important conference, on a subject of crucial importance for the Council of Europe, and indeed for Europe as a whole.

I thank the current Swiss Chairmanship for taking this initiative, which is in line with Swiss character if I may say so. I had reason to reflect on this as I travelled on the road from Bern which is an impressive system of tunnels through mountains, of roads carved on the side of mountains as these meet lakes – all testifying to the Swiss determination to find a way through difficulties. This conference will have to do the same.

Turning to the title of this conference: “The Future of the European Court of Human Rights” - are we sure it covers enough of what we must tackle? This became abundantly clear at a hearing organised last December by the Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights: any solution to the problems facing the Council of Europe’s system of protection of human rights must also urgently address problems outside the Court itself.

I refer especially to the lack of implementation of Convention standards within member states, and to the need to ensure prompt and full compliance with Strasbourg Court judgments in the countries concerned. Here lies our best chance to stem the flood of applications presently submerging the Court.

Naturally, I have read and studied the draft Interlaken Declaration and generally share its objectives, namely:

•       a renewed commitment to the system of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right of individual application;

•       support for the Strasbourg Court;

•       the mapping of in-depth reform to guarantee the long-term efficiency of the system ;

•       and an eight-point Action Plan.

That said, I sincerely hope our conference will have the courage to face the real human rights issues and problems confronting member states, and the Council of Europe.

We should be aware of at least three realities: Firstly, the Strasbourg Court is not equipped to deal with large-scale abuses of human rights. Here, should not the Committee of Ministers make more robust use of its 1994 “Declaration on Compliance with Commitments”? The Assembly should also do more in this respect: it needs to refocus its monitoring priorities more on compliance with commitments by member states.

Secondly: several of the Court’s main ‘clients’ have not made a serious effort to put into effect the “Convention reform package”, worked out between 2000 to 2004. By so doing, have they not put into jeopardy the very existence of the ECHR system? And if so, can we count on the Committee of Ministers to clearly identify the ‘offending’ states and to help these states confront their problems - rather than repeatedly addressing all member states to protect human rights?

Thirdly: The Court is financed through the Council of Europe’s budget. Here, state contributions are clearly insufficient. Surely the financing of the Court must be reviewed as a matter of urgency - but not at the expense of the rest of the Organisation. Why is this subject not given top priority in the draft “Interlaken Declaration”?

Turning now to the authority and effectiveness of the European Court of Human Rights, as you know, the Assembly elects the judges, from a list presented to it by States Parties. The quality of candidates put forward for election is of crucial importance. If national selection procedures are inadequate, the Assembly cannot do much. Often, candidates are good, but not necessarily outstanding. If the judgments of the Strasbourg Court are to be recognised as authoritative by the highest judicial organs in member states, the Assembly must be in a position to elect top quality judges from lists of the highest quality.

As for the volume of new applications, the statistics are depressing. The number of complaints has reached the staggering figure of almost 120,000 – some 4 kilometres in length if the files are placed side by side – with an output deficit of 1,800 applications every month...

Does the backlog represent all Council of Europe member states more or less evenly? The answer is no. Four states together represent close to 60% of the backlog. If we take the ten high case-count states, they represent over three-quarters of the backlog. In 2008, close to 90% of the Court’s judgments concerned only 12 states.

The issue of late execution – or indeed non-execution – of Strasbourg Court judgments is a matter of concern. 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. With over 30 Ministers present at this conference, I feel duty-bound to stress that this unacceptable situation has to be dealt with immediately. Today, not tomorrow!

We must conclude that the Strasbourg Human Rights Convention system is in danger of asphyxiation. In view of this serious situation, it seems absurd for the Court and its staff to be obliged to waste time and effort in dealing with repetitive applications.

Many states do not give appropriate effect to their Convention obligations. Why do not national parliaments, and indeed the Assembly, summon ministers to account for this at hearings in full view of the media? When Protocol No.14 of the Convention enters into force, the Committee of Ministers should bring ‘infringement proceedings’ against states that are “repeat offenders” in this respect.

The fact that the Strasbourg Court has a substantial workload and increasing backlog, does this mean that we should take a precipitated decision to embark on yet another major internal reform for the Court itself? Do we really need to create, within the Court, an “additional judicial filtering body”, as some have suggested? Could this not be done by a rotating pool of existing judges or by a specially assigned body taken from within the Court’s Registry, or from the judicial corps of member states?

It seems to me that a more effective application of the Convention within member states is essential. And here national parliaments have a special duty to ensure that draft laws, existing legislation and administrative practice are compatible with the standards of the Convention, as interpreted by the Court. It is not just a question of domestic courts remedying violations, but of preventing human rights violations, which is principally the responsibility of national parliaments and governments. The Assembly has done a lot of work on this matter as was clearly shown at the December hearing I mentioned earlier.

We should not forget that the Strasbourg supervisory mechanism is ‘subsidiary’ in nature. 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.

Major efforts are still needed to train lawyers, prosecutors and judges in how to interpret and apply the Convention and the Strasbourg Court’s case-law. This would surely help stem the flood of applications to the Court.

In other words, a well-functioning national human rights protection machinery could make a separate filtering body within the Court superfluous. Primary responsibility for the protection of human rights should be shifted back to national legal systems and practices, where it rightly belongs.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I hope I have not drawn too bleak a picture. As you travel through the tunnels here in Switzerland and see brightness in the distance, it could mean the end of the tunnel. The imminent entry into force of Protocol 14 will no doubt help.

Then there is the recent entry into force of the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty which will permit what I hope will be a rapid accession by the European Union to the Convention on Human Rights and thus guarantee a coherent, Europe-wide system of human rights protection. Let us do all we can to speed up accession in the months to come.

In conclusion, we must not let the current challenges to the system of the Convention on Human Rights lead us to paralysis. Fear is a bad companion. In its 60 years of existence, the Convention and the work of its Court have made an indisputable contribution to human rights and freedoms in Europe raising the standards of protection, and gradually helping to harmonise national practices.

When you travel to Interlaken from Bern, you first have a long stretch of flat land. The first 40 or 50 years of the Convention’s and the Court’s existence could be likened to road-building in such topography. Those were the “easy years” – the “easy stretch” – as it were. Then the road hits the mountains. This is where we are now. We count on the ingenuity and the daring – not only of our Swiss hosts but of all our member states – to take us through the more difficult terrain ahead.

I look forward to our proceedings and wish us all every success at this critical time. You can count on the full support of the Parliamentary Assembly in moving things forward.

I thank you for your attention.