Council of Europe (UK Chairmanship)

Alan Meale Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Meale (Mansfield) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Lidington]

I will give way one last time, and then I must make progress.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Will the Minister confirm a bit of information? As he touched on earlier, there are about 800 million people, comprising 47 nations, in the greater European area. I hope that he will confirm for Members on both sides of the House that, on all the judgments that the Court has made so far, this country has never refused to endorse the Court’s findings.

[Mr Lidington]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right.

The convention played an important role after the second world war in re-establishing democracy and the rule of law across western Europe. It played a vital role after the cold war in leading the former states of the Soviet Union and its satellites to start adopting the principles of democratic liberalism. The convention remains crucial in tackling the murder of journalists in Russia, for example, or questions of religious freedom in Turkey. There are also telling recent examples of its relevance here at home—for example, in preventing the misuse of stop-and-search powers.

The problem is not with the fundamental principles of human rights expressed through the convention, but there are real issues that rightly cause concern in this House and more widely—issues that, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) pointed out, matter to all countries that are party to the convention and members of the Council of Europe. Those relate to the operation of the Court in Strasbourg. The United Kingdom is a strong supporter of the Court and recognises its important role, but it is not working as it should, for at least two reasons.

First, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds rightly said, it is struggling under a huge workload, and drowning under a backlog of more than 150,000 cases, which is growing by roughly 20,000 additional cases each year. The eightfold increase in case loads since 2001 shows that a sensible refocusing on what really matters is not a subject that can simply be deferred for another day; it is an urgent priority.

That urgency is illustrated further by the fact that more than 90% of cases before the Court, when they finally get to the top of the queue and are properly considered, or found to be inadmissible, simply do not come within the scope of the convention, or the procedural rules are found not to have been observed. For cases involving the United Kingdom that figure is higher. Roughly 97% of cases brought against the United Kingdom are found to be inadmissible—and that is before we get on to whether in the other cases—the minority—the finding is for or against the country alleged to have broken the terms of the convention. The backlog is the first reason why there is an urgent need to reform the court.

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[Mr Lidington]

With respect, I may correct the hon. Gentleman, because the chairmanship proceeds in alphabetical sequence, so the Albanians will take over from us. I can certainly assure him, however, that the Foreign Secretary and I remain completely committed to doing all that lies within our power to work for an outcome in Cyprus that brings about the creation of a bi-zonal and bi-communal federation, with equal rights for all communities, and in compliance with the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. It is not for the United Kingdom to determine what happens in Cyprus, because the process has to be Cypriot led if it is to work and if there is to be an enduring accord, but we give what support we can to the communities in Cyprus and to the work of the UN Secretary-General and his special envoy, Alexander Downer.

[Sir Alan Meale]

rose—

[Mr Lidington]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not give way, because he has had one bite of the cherry and I want to make progress. I do not want to be sidetracked into a further debate about Cyprus, which I am sure the House will have an opportunity to discuss in the future.

We have a unique opportunity to secure improvements to the Court, to enhance its credibility, the rule of law and the protection of human rights and to ensure that the legitimate decisions and traditions of national courts and legal systems are properly respected.

Hon. Members will be only too aware of the domestic backdrop to the programme, about which there is great interest abroad. The House will know, too, that the Government have established an independent commission with a remit to investigate the creation of a UK Bill of Rights, which would incorporate and build on all our obligations under the convention. I hope that the commission’s work will assist in bringing clarity to an area of contentious debate, and indeed it has already advised the Government very usefully on Court reform, but to avoid any doubt let me reaffirm that in the Government’s mind there is no question of the UK leaving the European convention on human rights. The coalition’s programme for government makes very clear our commitment to the convention and to the values it embodies.

The Attorney-General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), commented on this subject very eloquently on Monday just gone, saying:

“The United Kingdom signed the Convention on the first day it was open for signature...The United Kingdom was the first country to ratify the Convention the following year. The United Kingdom will not be the first country to leave the Convention.”

I have spoken at length about Court reform, but our goals for our chairmanship touch on other significant matters, and I would like to close by turning briefly to them.

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[Emma Reynolds]

I join the hon. Gentleman in that view. I recognise that Members across this House have played very important roles in the Council of Europe at different times.

Despite the fact that a Conservative Government were the driving force behind the European convention on human rights, a Labour Government put those rights into UK law in 1999, and we are proud of that. The Human Rights Act 1998 gives British citizens the right to bring cases before British courts rather than having to petition European judges directly. Although we remain committed to the European convention and the European Court, we also recognise that the Court needs reform. The Government have said today that its reform should be a priority for our forthcoming chairmanship, and I support that.

As has been mentioned, the Government set up an independent commission that has presented interim recommendations concerning that reform. The commission highlighted three areas that need to be addressed: the need substantially to reduce the number of cases brought before the Court; the need to consider the remedies that the Court may grant; and the need to improve the process of selecting high-quality judges.

[Sir Alan Meale]

At the moment, the judges are elected in the Assembly by all Members of the Assembly, but the Interlaken process proposes to diminish that democratic selection mechanism. The current process involves not just the election of the judges but the interviewing of the candidates, in which two criteria must be fulfilled: first, they have to be fully qualified to stand for election; and secondly, there must be at least one woman among the three candidates. I hope that my hon. Friend is not suggesting that we should move away from those principles.

[Emma Reynolds]

I am a great supporter of gender equality, but the selection process needs to be improved.

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[Mr Walter]

My hon. Friend makes a very significant point about the sovereignty of member states, whether they be members of the European Union or of the Council of Europe. I believe that the sovereignty of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe should be absolute in the case of a Council of Europe convention.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Like the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues, I pay tribute to him for his work at the Council of Europe over many years. Members of all parties will agree that he does a fine job. I apologise, but I will have to leave the debate shortly to chair the sitting in Westminster Hall.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the sovereignty of nations, what about Turkey? It has refused to accept the outcome of the Louzides case on the confiscation of property—it has paid up, but it has never accepted it. What about its current threat that if Cyprus is given the presidency of the Council of Ministers, it will leave the Council of Europe and not pursue any path towards entry into the European Union?

[Mr Walter]

I think the hon. Gentleman knows that I am an avowed supporter of Turkish membership of the European Union, but that does not mean that I will in any way make excuses for the Turkish Government’s non-compliance with their international obligations. I also regret the Turkish Prime Minister’s statement that Turkey would not participate in any discussions with the EU should Cyprus take on the presidency of the Council of Ministers. That is a wrong decision, as I have said to many Turkish colleagues.

To return to the question of EU accession, I wish to refer for a moment to the role of the European Parliament. It has been conceded that when it comes to the question of the election of judges, the European Parliament will have the same rights as the largest member states. We are one of those five largest member states. However, the draft arrangements go on to give the European Parliament special treatment, which I think is unjustified. It will have an ex officio place on the sub-committee that interviews the candidates for the post of judge in the European Court of Human Rights. As the leader of one of the other large delegations, I ask why I cannot appoint an ex officio member to that sub-committee on the basis that I should have the same voting rights as the European Parliament.

Under its internal mechanisms, the European Parliament will have the power to veto the three candidates who are on the shortlist. No other Parliament has that power. It will also have the power to be on the sub-committee that interviews the candidates. I contend that that will create an uneven playing field, and I hope we will resist it when we come to debate EU accession.

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[Sir Alan Meale (Mansfield) (Lab)]

I said that I was not going to be able to speak in the debate, but I managed to get somebody else to chair a meeting in this building in time to come back to the Chamber.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) on her persistence and endeavour in securing this debate, although I suspect our agreement on and understanding of each other’s politics ceases there. She has not grasped at all what the Council of Europe is about, which is human rights, the rule of law and democracy. They are all intertwined; they are not simple little solutions set aside from each other and never the twain shall meet. They are interlinked so that we can get policies that cross national boundaries.

The hon. Lady cites one or two examples that everybody in this Chamber, including the Minister and Labour Members, agree on, but they are minor cases where things have to be cleared up. That is all part of the agenda for change, which the Council of Ministers and the Council of Europe are undertaking. Let us deal with the big issues, one of which is capital punishment. Countries are not allowed to become members of the Council of Europe if they carry out capital punishment. We must remember that there are 800 million people in these 47 countries in greater Europe, and we cannot singly deal with one or two issues such as the ones she raised.

[Mr Binley]

Does the hon. Gentleman not appreciate that many of the decisions by the European Court of Human Rights that gain the headlines in our newspapers actually diminish the role of justice and therefore are very important?

[Sir Alan Meale]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I apologise if I have led him up the path of thinking that these minor matters in relation to the very big issues that the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights deal with are in some way not important. They are all very important, and they are very important to the people involved. As the Minister rightly pointed out, Members on both sides of the House are seriously of a mind for change and reform as far as the Court is concerned, because of the huge catalogue of outstanding cases, many of which could and should be dealt with in the courts of the individual countries. We should accept responsibility for our failure to act to make the courts deal with them. As the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) said, the problem of the courts and the outstanding cases in the European Court is caused by failures in individual nations and their court systems.

I said in an intervention that we have a very democratic system, which could be reformed in some way, for choosing judges. The three candidates that are submitted by all member countries have to be fully experienced in such matters before their names are even put forward and there has to be a gender balance. Those people are then examined by a committee in full before recommendations are made to the Assembly, which then decides. I have been there on a number of occasions over the years, as have other hon. Members who are present today, when time and again we have sent back the names of candidates and said, “They are not qualified,” “They do not come up to the standard,” or, in a number of cases, “No gender choice whatever has been given.” A few years ago, some countries refused to submit the name of a female candidate. The system is well-tested and I do not think that talking about “sleepwalking” away from accountability is the best way forward.

The Minister gave us the best way forward, which has been accepted by all parties. We need reform. We have to wake up the courts and the Governments of member countries and say, “You have to take responsibility for and deal with these issues; the European Court is for bigger things.” The example I gave of where such instances might apply involved a failure by two members of the Council of Europe area and, indeed, Britain—so three countries in all—in respect of seized assets in the northern area of Cyprus. An individual citizen went through all the courses for legal redress in their own country, Cyprus, and then went to the guarantor powers of Greece and the United Kingdom, but the case failed and there was no other domestic court for that case to go to. Members might ask, “What does a person’s ownership of their home have to do with the European Court of Human Rights?” Well, it has a lot to do with it if someone’s country has been invaded, they have been marshalled out of their home and local area into another country, and the return of the assets in the house, and the house itself, has been refused.

The Loizidou case went to the Court, which took a number of years to deal with it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) rightly pointed out, it was then sent back to Turkey and the regime in the northern area of Cyprus, which were told, “You must deal with this matter. What you have done is illegal—you have illegally invaded, you have illegally occupied and you have illegally kept rightful owners away from their homes.” The judgment that came down in the end was that reparation to the tune of nearly £1 million in costs and compensation should be paid to the family not for the home they had lost but for the loss of use of their home over that 30-odd year period. That case could not have been dealt with in any other court.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important case regarding the human rights of the people of Cyprus. Is it not the case that this issue of human rights goes further and affects not just loss of property but loss of people? There is also an issue of missing relatives and people who still do not know where their loved ones have gone since the conflicts. They have called on Turkey to release basic information giving them a right to know where their relatives are. Does he agree that there has been a breach of those fundamental rights which must be answered and that we could take the opportunity, as chair of the Council of Europe, to make that case?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. We are not discussing the issue of Turkey per se and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will bring the debate back to the question of the chairmanship of the Council of Europe and its priorities.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Thank you for that guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. To give a very short reply to the question, let me just point out to the hon. Member for Witham that there has been involvement in that particular case and many other cases of breaches of human rights by the British Government as a guarantor power. Those issues will be taken up yet again in the course of the six-month chairmanship. Indeed, quite recently the European Minister met the Commissioner for Human Rights, who is an employee elected by the Council of Europe members in its Assembly. As my colleague the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) alluded to, 1,619 Greek Cypriots and 684 Turkish Cypriots remain missing from those periods. I know there will be contact on that subject during our chairmanship.

The Minister outlined the primary policies that we shall take up during our chairmanship. One key area is local and regional government. Next week or the week after, the Minister will be present at talks in Kiev. I hope he will give a guarantee in his summing-up that he will fall behind all the magnificent work on local government reform by Kivinemi, the Minister from Finland, which was picked up and improved upon by Chavez, the Spanish Minister. That is very important.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Witham on her persistence in obtaining the debate, but I ask her to think about some of the Council of Europe’s other roles that will be debated during our chairmanship. We send people on peace missions or monitoring missions. Two or three Members who are currently in the Chamber take part in those missions and put themselves at risk. At this minute there are people on monitoring missions in some outlying areas of greater Europe, where they have to receive military protection in order to fulfil their role. In the forthcoming weeks and months, Members from both sides of the Chamber will be undertaking such missions, and they risk their lives in doing so. In the Georgian conflict, the Chechnyan conflict, the Bosnian conflict and the Kosovan-Serbia conflict, Members of the House, as members of the Council of Europe, went in as peace monitors and election monitors, trying to achieve a democratic purpose. The Council is not just a small organisation in that respect.

I shall refer briefly to the work of the eight committees of the Council of Europe. Britain’s membership of the Assembly, from both sides of this Chamber, is a worthwhile and leading part of the work of the Council of Europe. We have a number of vice-chairmen. We have the chairmen of the monitoring committee, the health committee and the environment committee; the list goes on and on. I mentioned the committee that examines and gives initial interviews to those who wish to become judges of the European Court of Human Rights. We hold the chairmanship and leading positions on that committee. I pay tribute to a previous Conservative Member of this place: John Greenway was the chair of the Council’s committee on rules of procedure, and did a magnificent job in the years that he held that position.

I also pay tribute to the British ambassador in Strasbourg. I have seen many ambassadors in different countries who treat it as a fine profession and a life indeed, but this woman works night and day. If committees meet early in the morning, she is there; she is there throughout the day and into the late evenings, attending meetings and so on. I pay tribute to her and her staff, as I do to Secretary-General Jagland. He is comparatively new to his role, but I am pleased that I and others on both sides of this Chamber voted for him, because he has done a magnificent job and brought a stature to the Council of Europe and its work, with his background as Speaker and Prime Minister of his own country’s Government. His sense of purpose in the reform process has been very good indeed.

Last but not least, I pay tribute to the staff of this place. We have a small number of staff who run the Overseas Office. They fix up all the travel arrangements and arrange the accommodation, which I acknowledge is not salubrious—I wish it was—but for which they get the best value they can. They have to make those arrangements for 30-odd Members of Parliament, including arrangements to enable them to participate in all the committees that emanate from the work of the Council of Europe.

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[Oliver Heald]

The hon. Gentleman made his speech, and I have disagreed with several points that he made, so we will probably have to leave it at that.

The Government are right to make Court reform a priority, however. With a backlog of 162,000 cases, there is a need for a filter to provide some way of getting through them, and we are right to try to introduce more subsidiarity. I agree with our delegation leader, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter), that we should have a system in which one needs leave to take a case to the European Court of Human Rights, although personally I think that one would need also the right, if leave were refused, to apply directly to the Court. That would not open a great floodgate of cases; it would just mean that, if a particular case were decided for political reasons, which is what can happen in some countries, there would be a further way through.

On the Human Rights Act, I have mentioned my support for a British Bill of Rights, but the other issue is the quality of the judges. I have been a member of the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly for only two-and-a-half years, or perhaps three now, but that problem has been raised in the Assembly throughout that period. Some judges just do not know the Court’s law base, and there is a concern that some countries’ candidates are just not adequate. We should find ways to improve the quality.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm, so that the House is not left with the wrong impression, that we refuse candidates at every session? If they do not meet the language, experience and gender balance criteria, we do not appoint them. We send them back, time and time again to some countries.

[Oliver Heald]

Yes, and of course the answer is not to find a way of letting unsatisfactory candidates through; it is to secure an improvement in the quality of candidates. Knowledge of the Court’s key languages is vital; otherwise it is not possible for the judges to interact with it.

My impression of the European Court of Human Rights is that it takes a slightly diplomatic approach to its cases and almost sprays round the judgments a bit. There is a need to act entirely on the basis of serious human rights abuses and not to feel that every country of the 47 must have a judgment against it. More focus on serious abuses of human rights would meet the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and other hon. Friends.

I support Secretary-General Jagland’s programme of reform, which will save money—the hon. Member for Bassetlaw will be pleased about that—and streamline the organisation, reducing the number of committees. It is worth giving credit to Mr Mignon, who is rapporteur of the committee on rules of procedure, immunities and institutional affairs, and involved with the Assembly’s bureau. He has played a major part, and his report on changing the rules is a major piece of work. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset played a big part in that. Those changes will improve how the Assembly works.

The rule of law is an important priority for the Government, and I want to mention two issues. The first is migration. If we are to tackle migration, it is important to follow the approach that the committee on migration, refugees and population set out in its recent report, when my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) was the rapporteur. That involves sticking by the Dublin agreement. Asylum seekers must apply for asylum in the first country they arrive in; otherwise they may be sent back to that country. There is talk in the Council of Europe about flexibility and shared responsibility, which suggests that some people who apply for asylum could be waved through to other countries for their case to be dealt with, but that would drive a coach and horses through the regulation of migration in Europe. Many people already cross external borders illegally. It is important to stick by the Dublin agreement. We should also have better arrangements for patrolling the Mediterranean, and I know that the Government are supporting moves in that direction. I support the idea that our Government could send officials to help to deal with immigration cases in Greece and Italy, rather than going for the shared responsibility, wave-them-through approach. I hope that the Government will continue to offer that support to our southern neighbours in the hope that there will be no weakening of the Dublin agreement.

On extraordinary rendition, Dick Marty, the Swiss parliamentarian, recently produced “Abuse of State Secrecy and National Security: Obstacles to Parliamentary and Judicial Scrutiny of Human Rights Violations”. It is his last report, because he is standing down from the Council of Europe. I pay tribute to his long-standing commitment to human rights, and his campaign against extraordinary rendition. In his latest report, he pays tribute to the all-party group in the House that deals with the issue, and describes its efforts as untiring. It is right to pay tribute also to the all-party group.

The key point about Mr Marty’s report is that it builds on what we have been doing in this country. He says that legislation should not be a cloak for wrongdoing and highlights the importance of parliamentary scrutiny of the work of secret services, as we do here—although, obviously, there may room for improvement in that. He points to the need for courts to develop procedures where secret information can be used without damaging state security. He also addresses the settling of the cases that arose out of Guantanamo and the report that is being produced by the special inquiry led by Sir Peter Gibson. In doing so, he acknowledges that this Government are taking the issue seriously and approaching it in a way that could be a model for other parts of Europe.

The committee on culture, science and education is in the process of producing a report on internet governance. There has been and continues to be a good deal of argument about exactly what the report should contain. I am glad that the Government are making the issue one of their priorities. I hope that when the report comes out, assuming my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) gets his way on exactly what is in it, the Government will take it seriously and use it as part of their approach.

Finally, I welcome the Government’s concentration on tackling discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. What we do in this country is very seen much as the model for the rest of Europe. Some other countries are way behind—examples have been given with which I agree. It is good that our Government are going to build on the work that has been done in this country and try to spread it across the 47 countries of the Council of Europe.

In conclusion, it is very wise of the Government to have reached agreement with Ukraine and Albania—the countries whose periods of chairmanship are on either side of ours—because that means that, over an extended period of 18 months, the chairmanship can concentrate on some issues and get a result. I wish the Government well and hope that the Interlaken process is the success that it should be. The fact that 47 countries are involved, the largeness of the geographical area covered, and the way in which the organisation is led mean that if something is done right in one country, best practice can be spread right across Europe.