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29 June 1993
Doc. 6884
OPINION
on the application by the Czech Republic
for membership of the Council of Europe1
(Rapporteur: Mr SCHIESSER, Switzerland,
Liberal, Democratic and Reformers Group)
1. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights has mainly studied the aspects of the Czech Republic's application for which it is competent, namely the functioning of parliamentary democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Obviously, these are the cornerstones on which the Council of Europe is built and they are referred to expressly in the Preamble and Article 1 of the Statute of the Council.
2. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights has based its examination in particular on two reports:
- the report on the legislation of the Czech Republic produced by Mr Franz Matscher, Judge at the European Court of Human Rights, and Mrs Jane Liddy, member of the European Commission of Human Rights.2
- The report of the Political Affairs Committee prepared by Mrs Lentz-Cornette to which I also contributed (Doc. 6855).
From these studies it emerges, grosso modo, that the chief principles of parliamentary democracy, human rights and the rule of law are complied with by the new Czech Republic.
3. In the letter dated 1 January 1993 sent by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe3, he stated specifically that the Czech Republic considered itself bound by the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols Nos 1, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 10 and by the declarations under the optional clauses4 already made by the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic which - it should be noted - had speedily ratified the Convention and accepted these two clauses. In his address to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 7 May 1993, the Minister also declared that his country was ready to ratify the Convention as soon as it acceded to the Council. The Czech authorities, moreover, had already made similar promises during the visit by the rapporteurs to Prague from 8 to 10 March 1993.
4. The Czech Republic has also declared that it is ready to ratify the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism and to sign the European Social Charter and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
5. The spheres which concern our committee for which satisfactory solutions are still to be found are as follows:
i. pending the organisation of the regions of the country, the Senate cannot be elected. Not even an interim Senate has been constituted;5
ii. a draft law on the Constitutional Court, responsible for protecting constitutional order, is before Parliament. It could be adopted in July 1993. Consequently the Court has not yet been established;6
iii. the recovery of confiscated property. This concerns not only expropriations during the period 1948 to 1989 but also the expropriations made by the Nazis and those between 1945 and 1948;7
iv. the situation of the Gypsies who seem to suffer frequently from discrimination and most of whom are very poor and have a level of education which does not enable them to find work in a country affected by unemployment. It is highly desirable for the principles of Recommendations 1201 and 1203 to be applied to them.8
6. This having been said, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights can endorse the conclusion of the Political Affairs Committee that the Czech Republic now fulfils the essential conditions for membership of the Council of Europe. Consequently, it recommends adoption of the draft opinion contained in Doc. 6855.
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Reporting Committee: Political Affairs Committee (Doc. 6855)
Committee for opinion: Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Reference to committee: Doc. 6737, Reference No. 1840 of 1 February 1993
Opinion approved by the committee on 28 June 1993
Secretaries of the committee: Mr Plate and Ms Coin
2 22. AS/Bur/Czech (44) 1, available from the Secretariat.
3 11. See Appendix 3 to Doc. 6855.
4 22. Articles 25 and 46 of the Convention, that is, on individual petition and the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court of Human Rights.
5 33. See Doc. 6855, para. 18.
6 44. See Doc. 6855, paras 22 and 39.
7 55. See Doc. 6855, para. 42.
8 66. See Doc. 6855, paras. 34 to 37 and 57; Recommendation 1201 (1993) on an Additional Protocol on the rights of minorities to the European Convention on Human Rights; Recommendation 1203 (1993) on Gypsies in Europe.