Recommendation 2073 (2015)

Improving the protection of whistle-blowers

Author(s): Parliamentary Assembly

Origin - Assembly debate on 23 June 2015 (21st Sitting) (see Doc. 13791, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, rapporteur: Mr Pieter Omtzigt). Text adopted by the Assembly on 23 June 2015 (21st Sitting).

1. The Parliamentary Assembly recalls its Resolution 2060 (2015) on improving the protection of whistle-blowers, as well as its Recommendation 1916 (2010) on the protection of “whistle-blowers”.

2. The Assembly welcomes the adoption by the Committee of Ministers of Recommendation CM/Rec(2014)7 on the protection of whistleblowers, as an important step in the right direction.

3. The Assembly invites the Committee of Ministers to:

3.1. promote further improvements for the protection of whistle-blowers by launching the process of negotiating a binding legal instrument in the form of a framework convention that would be open to non-member States and cover disclosures of wrongdoings by persons employed in the field of national security and intelligence;

3.2. meanwhile, consider ways and means to provide Council of Europe technical assistance to member States for the implementation of Recommendation CM/Rec(2014)7;

3.3. encourage the Secretary General to further improve the whistle-blowing rules that are in effect in the Council of Europe, with a view to bringing them fully into line with the principles upheld by the Assembly and the Committee of Ministers.