Reply to Recommendation 1295 - Procedure for examining candidatures for the election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights

Doc. 7989

21 January 1998

Procedure for examining candidatures for the election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights

Reply to Recommendation 1295 (1996)

from the Committee of Ministers

adopted on 14 January 1998 at the 614^th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies

The Committee of Ministers took note of Recommendation 1295 (1996) of the Parliamentary Assembly on the Procedure for examining candidatures for the election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights, together with the Assembly's Resolution 1082 (1996), which is referred to in the text of the Recommendation, at the 566th meeting of the Deputies (May 1996). At that meeting the Deputies decided to bring the text of the Recommendation to the attention of their Governments, and to invite their Rapporteur Group on Human Rights to examine the questions raised in the text.

The Committee of Ministers recalls that, on the proposal of the Chairman of the Ministers' Deputies, a joint meeting was held in September 1996 between the Rapporteur Group on Human Rights and the Assembly Committee on Legal Questions and Human Rights, in order to discuss some of these questions. Discussions focused in particular on the draft model curriculum vitae presented in Resolution 1082, and on the section entitled “Political activities”. The members of the Rapporteur Group expressed a preference for a heading “Public activities”. At that meeting, there was no agreement between the two committees concerning this point.

The Committee of Ministers' response to Recommendation 1295 (1996) is therefore embodied in the action taken in respect of the issues raised. On 23 September and 6 October 1997, the Secretary General wrote to national authorities, in the first instance alerting them to the forthcoming call for candidates and then calling for candidates. In the documentation attached to these letters, the Secretary General, after an informal consultation of the Rapporteur Group on Human Rights, included the model curriculum vitae as put forward in Assembly Resolution 1082 (1996) except that the section on “Political activities” was replaced by the heading “Public activities”.

Regarding the other issue of substance raised in the Recommendation, i.e the question of budgetary appropriations for the travel and subsistence expenses of candidates invited to an interview (paragraph 2 of the Recommendation): although no such appropriation was voted by the Deputies at their 579th meeting (December 1996) in the context of the adoption of the budget of the Council of Europe for 1997, both the Secretary General and the Clerk of the Assembly announced at the Deputies' 609bis meeting (November 1997) that funds had been made available for this purpose.

The Committee of Ministers notes that the hearings provided for in the Parliamentary Assembly's procedures for the election of judges are now under way.