Council of Europe

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Howell]

I agree with that, and I will come on to say a little more on that in a moment.

Many of the current delegation have not been members for long, but while we are there, we will play our full part in working with the Council of Europe to take forward its aims and values and to make sure they are part of the system we all work in. We need to be wary in particular of the activities of the far right, is out to infiltrate our political groups.

The Council of Europe has just completed a summit, only the fourth it has held in its history. Some members of my political party were sceptical about it; I was not. For an organisation that does not put its head above the parapet often enough, it was a great success and it has shown what the Council of Europe is about. It was attended by our Prime Minister, and the declaration was signed by the UK. The declaration commits the UK to upholding the activities of the European Court of Human Rights and the European convention on human rights. It states:

“We reaffirm our deep and abiding commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as the ultimate guarantors of human rights across our continent, alongside our domestic democratic and judicial systems. We reaffirm our primary obligation under the Convention to secure to everyone within our jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, as well as our unconditional obligation to abide by the final judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in any case to which we are Parties.”

It goes on to state:

“Our European democracies are not established once and for all. We need to strive to uphold them each and every day, continuously, in all parts of our continent. The Council of Europe remains the guiding light that assists us in fostering greater unity among us for the purpose of safeguarding and realising these ideals and principles which are our common heritage. We reaffirm our commitment to developing mutual understanding among the peoples of Europe and reciprocal appreciation of our cultural diversity and heritage.”

As Lord Kirkhope said in the other place, let us ensure that international agreements such as this are honoured.

When the UK last held the presidency of the Council of Europe back in David Cameron’s time as Prime Minister, we initiated what has come to be called the Brighton declaration, which was a reform of the system of how the Court operated. The Brighton declaration wrote the principal of subsidiarity and the importance of domestic courts into the convention. If only people had read that before the recent fuss, it would have made life easier and simpler.

Of the things that the Council of Europe does that I most value, the two most prominent are election observation and monitoring. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe does election observation, but that does not make what the Council of Europe does any less important. I pay tribute to colleagues who put themselves into difficult situations to ensure that elections are free and fair. It is a two-stage approach. The first question is, “Is the environment in which the election takes place free and fair?” In the case of Turkey, I would argue that it was not. The fact that many of the President’s rivals had been arrested suggests that. The second element is, “Is the process used for people to vote free and fair?” In one case, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we found that those elected to open the polling booth turned up with a hold-all full of pre-filled polling cards in favour of the pro-Iranian candidate. They were promptly arrested.

I praise the role of rapporteurs, whose presence in pre-election missions is critical. A good rapporteur who knows the territory well and can get into the detail is a necessary requisite for that. That is not always the case with all rapporteurs. Many have a thin and superficial knowledge of the country they are reporting on.

One of the most potentially useful things I have done as a rapporteur for Turkey is to visit the human rights prisoner, Osman Kavala. He was—I should say is—a prominent businessman and philanthropist. He also has a link to this country, where he was on the faculty of the University of Manchester. When I visited him in a Turkish high-security prison, where he has been imprisoned for more than five years in pre-trial detention, I saw a man who showed no resentment for how he had been treated. I hope that now the elections are over, President Erdoğan will pardon Kavala and release him. He is of course not the only human rights prisoner in Turkey, but he is the epitome of all the others.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my very good friend for allowing me to intervene. In the case of Turkey, a country that he and I care about, what influence and power do we have when he sees something that is palpably wrong, apart from publicising it? Do we have any more power in the Council of Europe than that?

[John Howell]

We have a tremendous amount more power, and that power lies in the personality of the rapporteur and what they want to do. They can do that by talking diplomatically to people there, rather than banging the table and demanding that something be done.



There was an idea at the summit to appoint a new commissioner for democracy. I confess that I was interested in the position for myself, but unfortunately the idea was placed on the back burner and not taken forward, which I think is a shame. Right across Europe, we see a backsliding on democracy that is very worrying. The appointment of a commissioner for democracy would have helped to prevent that.

What impact does the Council have on our domestic legislative agenda? Let me give two short examples—the Istanbul convention and the Lanzarote convention. The Istanbul convention sets out the protections that are required for women in cases of violence and domestic abuse. It is a landmark convention, and I am pleased that, after lobbying by me, we have signed it—in part, but being able to sign it in part is important. This so distinguishes the way the Council of Europe works from the way that the EU works. It is characteristic of the convention system used by the Council that conventions are put together right across the nations of Europe, and it is the choice of every country to determine which bits should apply in their own country.

The Lanzarote convention is a comprehensive treaty that does a great deal to put in place the international co-operation required to protect children’s rights. I would add a third example, which is the Venice Commission’s work to establish the principles under which ombudsmen work and are appointed. The all-party parliamentary group on alternative dispute resolution looked at that yesterday, with a representative from the United Nations also saying that it has adopted the Venice Commission’s principles.

What good does the Council of Europe do? Critics say that it is nothing but a talking shop. Well, perhaps, but I would strongly argue that it does much more than that through the work of the Assembly, the Committee of Ministers, the Court, the anti-corruption activities of the Group of States against Corruption, the anti-human trafficking work undertaken by the group of experts on action against trafficking in human beings, and the work of the Venice Commission in strengthening democratic institutions. All of these deliver tangible results across member states.