Doc. 8589

22 November 1999

Human rights of conscripts

Recommendation 1380 (1998)

Reply from the Committee of Ministers

adopted at the 687^th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies (15 November 1999)

The Committee of Ministers is sympathetic to the ideas underlying the proposals contained in Recommendation 1380 (1998) and the arguments put forward in the accompanying Resolution (1166 (1998)).

The Committee of Ministers accepts that the member states have a responsibility for ensuring the effective protection of the human rights of persons undergoing compulsory military service, a group potentially in need of particular attention.

The Committee is confident that the European Convention on Human Rights and the case-law of its control machinery already provide guidelines concerning the protection of the human rights of conscripts.

In this connection, it is recalled that, in its judgment in the case of Engel and others against the Netherlands (8 June 1976), the European Court of Human Rights stated the following (see paragraph 54):

"… the Convention applies in principle to members of the armed forces and not only to civilians. It specifies in Articles 1 and 14 that ‘everyone within (the) jurisdiction’ of the Contracting States is to enjoy ‘without discrimination’ the rights and freedoms set out in Section I. Article 4, paragraph 3.b, exempts military service from the prohibition against forced or compulsory labour, further confirms that, as a general rule, the guarantees of the Convention extend to servicemen. The same is true of Article 11, paragraph 2 in fine which permits the states to introduce special restrictions on the exercise of the freedoms of assembly and association by members of the armed forces.

Nevertheless, when interpreting and applying the rules of the Convention […], the Court must bear in mind the particular characteristics of military life and its effects on the situation of individual members of the armed forces."

In this judgment the Court, while recognising particular characteristics of military life which may give rise to restrictions, underlines the universal applicability of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court has subsequently confirmed and extended this position.

The Committee of Ministers has transmitted the text of the Recommendation and the Resolution to the Steering Committee on Human Rights (CDDH) so that it may examine, in the light of the judgment of the Court quoted above and all other relevant decisions, whether it is necessary to draw up supplementary guidelines. The Committee of Ministers will keep the Assembly informed of any proposal for action which may be taken.