Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 11 Dec 2003

Vol. 577 No. 1

Written Answers. - EU Summits.

Kathleen Lynch

Question:

72 Ms Lynch asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will expand on his proposals for reform of the European Court of Human Rights made at the meeting of the Council of Europe ministerial session in Moldova on 6 November 2003; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30487/03]

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Cowen)

In my address to the 113th Committee of Ministers session in Moldova, I stated that securing the effectiveness of the Strasbourg Court is currently the single most important responsibility and most urgent task facing the Council of Europe. The court is struggling under the weight of a backlog of 39,000 cases which is growing at the rate of 1,000 per month. It has consistently drawn the attention of member states to the heavy burden of screening a huge mass of unmeritorious and unfounded applications. This large backlog endangers the viability and future of the European Convention on Human Rights and the court as the benchmark of human rights across the European continent.

Ireland has been a strong supporter of court reform. We welcome the decision of the Council of Europe to set a deadline of May 2004, the next ministerial session, for agreeing a solution to this problem. Any reform of the Strasbourg Court will require an agreement on an amending protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights. During our Presidency we will work with our EU partners to build agreement and consensus on the issues among all member states of the Council.

The precise nature of the court reform package is still under discussion in Strasbourg. The steering committee for human rights, the working group that has been charged by the Ministers with looking at possible reforms, met at the end of November to identify proposed reforms. At this meeting, an interim report, including preliminary draft proposals for the amending protocol, was adopted and forwarded to the Committee of Ministers' Deputies, CM, the Parliamentary Assembly, the Strasbourg Court, the Commissioner for Human Rights and various non-governmental organisations, with an invitation to submit comments. A final report will then be adopted and forwarded to the CM in April 2004 in time for formal consideration by the Ministers at the next ministerial session.

The steering committee has put forward proposals in three main areas, namely, preventing violations at national level and improving domestic remedies, optimising the effectiveness of the filtering and the subsequent processing of applications before the court and improving and accelerating execution of judgments of the court. While I fully recognise that great care is needed to ensure the success of this reform effort, I am confident that with a determined effort from the experts, we will be able to complete our work on the court reform package in time for the May ministerial next year.