Council of Europe (UK Chairmanship)

Jim Sheridan Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I do not differ from the hon. Gentleman in principle, but we need effective criteria that everyone—from the judges of the Court to the states parties—will accept as enabling the Court to differentiate properly between cases that should be considered at that European level and those that ought to have been dealt with according to the legal systems of states parties that have demonstrated good traditions of respecting human rights.

All this means that there is a clear and pressing case for reform, and all 47 members of the Council of Europe have already signed up to a reform process. The goal of our chairmanship is to drive forward the changes that began in Council meetings at Interlaken and Izmir, and to agree a final package that makes a real impact on the operation of the Court.

I announced, in a written statement to Parliament yesterday, our full set of chairmanship priorities, following my discussion on Tuesday with our friend and ally the Council of Europe secretary-general Thorbjørn Jagland. My statement set out more detail on the reform for which we are pressing. It included proposals that would make the Court more efficient to enable it to deal with its backlog of applications, would reinforce the idea that the Court’s role was a subsidiary one, with states having the primary responsibility to protect convention rights, and would ensure that the best possible processes were in place for nominating judges to the Court, and that the Court’s case law was clear and consistent.

How we will do that? Reform requires the agreement of all 47 member states, and there is no getting round that fact, so we will accord the highest political priority to securing consensus on the necessary reforms by means of a political declaration at the end of our chairmanship. That declaration would record political agreement to a package of reforms and set the scene for later implementation under subsequent chairmanships. The declaration, we hope, will include, where necessary, amendments to the procedural sections of the convention, and provide the basis for a decision of the Committee of Ministers, to be adopted at its annual meeting on 14 May 2012.

No one should be in any doubt that delivering those goals will take time and a lot of intensive and complicated negotiations, but I do believe that the winds of change are in our favour, and if we achieve the reform that we seek, we stand to gain a stronger Council of Europe and a more effective Court, focused better on real substantive breaches of human rights.

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

On declarations, there is no more fundamental right than that of a person to live freely and independently in their own country without fear of intimidation. The Minister will be aware that Cyprus follows the UK as chair of the Council, so will he assure Cypriots listening to this debate that we will do all we can and work tirelessly to ensure that the Cyprus problem, as it is now called, is satisfactorily concluded?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walter]

As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) pointed out, the fact that there are 47 member states means that it will be 23 years before we get the chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers again. It is therefore very important that we make good use of our six months in the chairmanship that starts in a week or so.

This House, as has been pointed out, is represented in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Eighteen Members from both Houses of Parliament serve as full members of the Parliamentary Assembly and a further 18 stand ready as substitutes.

[Jim Sheridan]

Notwithstanding the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for Europe, does he accept that his party’s delegation is not made up of the most enthusiastic people on European matters? Hopefully, after the British chairmanship, we will have a more enlightened delegation of Government Members to the Council of Europe.

[Mr Walter]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I think he will find that more members of the delegation are present on my side of the House than on his, where there are only four. The delegates from my party play an active role in the proceedings of the Parliamentary Assembly, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who chairs the committee on migration, refugees and population.

One of the powers of the Parliamentary Assembly is to elect judges to the European Court of Human Rights. I have often heard statements in the British press, and occasionally from colleagues, that we should not be subject to the judgments of unelected and unaccountable judges. Well, we do not have any elected judges in this country, but we do have an elected British judge who serves on the European Court of Human Rights.

Perhaps I may correct one other myth. Often we are told that Europe has acquired a flag and an anthem. Those are not the flag and the anthem of the European Union. They were adopted as far back as 1955 by the Council of Europe. Just like Liverpool football club, which also has a flag and an anthem, the Council of Europe has not yet become a nation state.

I want to deal with the United Kingdom agenda and one important aspect of it in particular. During our chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers, an important ongoing issue that may make some progress is the accession of the European Union to the European convention on human rights. The question of European Union accession engenders mixed responses. Among the non-EU members of the Council of Europe, it is considered to be a good thing. They wonder why the institutions of the European Union should not be covered by the European convention on human rights and why the European Court of Human Rights should not have jurisdiction over its institutions. In that spirit, I believe that we should take this matter forward. My concern is about the manner of the participation of the European Union.