Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 4 Dec 1996

Vol. 472 No. 4

Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: Motion.

Minister for Equality and Law Reform (Mr. Taylor)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann approves the terms of Protocol No. 11 to the Convention for The Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Restructuring the Control Machinery Established Thereby, signed by Ireland on 11 May, 1994, a copy of which was laid before Dáil Éireann on the 18th day of October, 1996.

It gives me particular pleasure, as a former member of the Irish delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, to introduce this motion. I know all my colleagues, whether past or present members of the assembly, take great pride in having played a part in the important work of that prestigious and highly respected body.

Ireland was a founder member of the Council of Europe in 1949. The Council of Europe is the oldest European institution, created with the aim of achieving a greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress — Article 1a of the Statute of the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe's statutory principles are the protection and promotion of the fundamental principles of pluralist democracy, human rights and the rule of law in all its member states. The main instrument at its disposal is the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, better known as the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Ireland became a party on 25 February 1953.

The concept of a Human Rights Charter and a Court of Justice was contained in the text of the draft European Convention on Human Rights submitted by the European Movement on 12 July 1949 to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. This text made provision not only for a court but for a human rights commission to which litigants would first have to submit their cases. It was foreseen that this body would be empowered to filter out petitions which were clearly unfounded, which had failed to exhaust domestic remedies or which did not meet the six-month deadline.

The proposal for a human rights commission, in addition to a court, was made to counter the criticism that the court would be inundated with frivolous litigation and its facilities exploited for political ends. The creation of a commission was not a contentious issue during the drafting of the convention. By contrast, there was considerable opposition to the creation of a court, it being argued that it would not correspond to a real need of member states. The net result was the tripartite structure, which entered into force on 3 September 1953: the Commission — to consider the admissibility of the facts, to promote friendly settlements and, if appropriate, to give an opinion as to whether the petitions reveal a violation of the Convention; the Court — to give a final and binding judgment on cases referred to it by the Commission, by a contracting party concerned or, since the entry into force in 1994 of Protocol 9 to the Convention, an individual applicant in certain circumstances and, finally the Committee of Ministers — to give a final and binding decision on cases not referred to the court by any of the aforementioned bodies or persons.

Over the last decade the number of cases considered under the enforcement mechanism of the European Convention on Human Rights has greatly increased as the Convention has become better known to citizens, as more member states have accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the court, and new member states have joined the Council of Europe. In 1986, 2,869 applications were received by the Commission, in 1995 there were 10,201 applications. On 31 December 1995 there were 4,065 cases pending before the Commission, including 2,461 awaiting first examination. Such delays threaten the effectiveness of the system as a means of protecting human rights.

The purpose of Protocol 11, which Ireland signed on 11 May 1994, is to replace the existing European Commission and Court of Human Rights with a new permanent court to expedite the hearing of cases and reduce the backlog of applications. The establishment of a new court was agreed unanimously by Heads of State and Government at the Vienna Summit of the Council of Europe in October 1993.

The new court will have jurisdiction in all matters concerning the interpretation and application of the Convention and Protocols thereto. Before an application by an individual can be heard by the Commission at present, the State against which the application is lodged must have previously made a declaration recognising the competence of the Commission to consider individual petitions. In practice, all contracting states accept this provision, although they must do so only for renewable periods. Ireland accepted this provision for an indefinite period on ratification of the Convention in 1953. Following a proposal by Ireland at the Vienna Summit and the subsequent unanimous agreement of member states, Protocol 11 will make it a permanent and mandatory requirement for contracting states to accept the right of individuals to petition the new court directly. This general acceptance renders the two-tier structure obsolete and, in recognition of this, the structure which Protocol 11 will bring about will "rationalise" the system.

The court will consist, as at present, of a number of judges equal to that of the states parties to the Convention. Each state will nominate three candidates one of whom will be elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; there is no change in this process. The members of the court will be elected for a period of six years as opposed to nine years under the present system and can be re-elected. A judge must retire on reaching the age of 70.

The new Court will exercise the same filtering function as that currently performed by the Commission and will assume the existing Commission's role of establishing the facts with the co-operation of the parties. It may sit in Committees of three judges to determine the admissibility of cases, in Chambers of seven judges to examine the merits of an application and in a Grand Chamber of 17 judges where a case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation of the Convention or where the resolution of a question might have a result inconsistent with a previous decision. Inter-State applications will be dealt with initially by a Chamber of seven judges and may be re-examined by the Grand Chamber.

The President of the Court, the Vice-Presidents and the Presidents of the Chambers will be members of the Grand Chamber. The judge elected in respect of the State against which the application has been lodged shall sit as an ex officio member of the Grand Chamber.

The admissibility criteria remain unchanged under the new system. For example, applications will continue to be declared inadmissible where domestic remedies have not been exhausted or the application is out of date. The procedure before the new court will be written and oral, as is the case under the present system, unless otherwise directed by the court.

Following the judgment delivered by a chamber of the court, the grand chamber, only at the request of one of the parties to the case and in exceptional circumstances, will be competent to re-examine a case if it raises serious questions concerning the interpretation or application of the convention or an issue of general importance.

The purpose is to ensure the quality and consistency of the court's case law by allowing for a re-examination of the most important cases if the conditions mentioned have not been met. A panel of five judges of the grand chamber will decide whether a case is to be accepted for re-examination. This is a departure from the existing procedure where the commission, or the state concerned, has an automatic right to refer to the court a case which has been declared admissible by the commission and where no friendly settlement has been reached.

The terms of office of the members of the commission and court will terminate as soon as the Protocol enters into force. This will take place one year after its ratification by all the state parties to the European Convention on Human Rights. However, members of the commission will continue their work for one year after the entry into force of the Protocol to finalise under the former system, applications which have already been declared admissible by the commission at the date of entry into force. Admissible applications which cannot be completed by the commission during the one year time limit will be examined by the new court under the new system. Applications pending before the commission which have not been declared admissible at the date of entry into force will also be examined by the new court in accordance with the new system.

I pay tribute to the Irish member of the court, Mr. Justice Brian Walsh, who, Deputies will recall, made a landmark contribution to Irish constitutional law during his distinguished career on the High and Supreme Courts. His contribution to the Court of Human Rights has been equally distinguished. The valuable work of the Irish member of the Human Rights Commission, Ms Jane Liddy, should also be recognised.

The judgment of the grand chamber will be final. Judgments of the chambers of seven judges will become final if the cases in which they have been rendered are not brought before the grand chamber. The new court will, as is the case with the existing court, determine the question of "just satisfaction", including that of costs and expenses. Final judgments of the court will be binding. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe will, as at present, continue to supervise their execution.

It is not considered there will be any change in the financial implications for the State in direct consequence of the ratification of Protocol 11. As is the case with the existing court, the new court will have power to award "just satisfaction"— compensation and costs — to an applicant if it finds there has been a violation of the convention. The amount of "just satisfaction" awarded in any given case depends on factors such as the type and complexity of the case and the extent of the loss suffered by the applicant. Protocol 11 does not provide for any change in the system of "just satisfaction" already existing under the current arrangements. An informal working party comprised of past and present members of the court and commission and officials of the Council of Europe Secretariat is examining the practical aspects of setting up the new system, particularly in regard to the transitional period. Reports on the progress made will be submitted to the Committee of Ministers.

Most of the rights and freedoms protected by the European Convention on Human Rights and its additional Protocols are the same in nature as those protected by the fundamental rights section of the Constitution. They include rights such as the right to life, respect for private and family life, home and correspondence, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the right to freedom of expression and the right to the fair administration of justice. Ireland has always been to the forefront in the defence of these fundamental rights and freedoms. As one of the first state parties to the convention, Ireland's ratification is necessary for entry into force of this important Protocolumn The convention remains the most advanced regional provision for the protection and promotion of human rights. It has had a major influence in the development of our national understanding of human rights.

I commend the motion to the House.

Mr. R. Burke

I welcome this long awaited motion. We are being asked to approve, by way of motion, the terms of Protocol 11 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms commonly known as the European Convention on Human Rights. This Protocol which is in general terms, an amendment to the convention is the most important reform of the machinery of the European Convention on Human Rights since it first came into force almost half a century ago. The Minister has failed to explain the long delay in bringing the motion before the House to enable us to ratify the Protocol to the convention.

The Heads of State and Government agreed in the Vienna Declaration of 9 October 1993 that Protocol 11 should be ratified as soon as possible. It was their clear determination to ensure that the enforcement machinery of the Convention on Human Rights should be radically altered to try to deal with the enormous backlog of cases which has built up. It was agreed by all that extreme urgency was the order of the day.

The Protocol was signed, subject to ratification, on behalf of Ireland on 11 May 1994, the day on which it was adopted and opened for signature. The Protocol cannot enter into force until one year after the date on which it has been ratified by all parties to the convention. It is essential for Ireland and the few other countries which have not yet ratified the Protocol to get moving and give the Council of Europe a chance to deal with the backlog and delays in the Strasbourg Court.

Ireland was among the first countries to sign the Protocol, yet it has become one of the last countries to ratify it. As the Minister knows, the political consensus in the House for ratification of the Protocol has never been in doubt. Why is it that Ireland, which should have been the first to ratify, has ended up among the last to ratify the Protocol? No country in the Council of Europe is more aware of the European Court and Commission of Human Rights and its problems of backlogs and interminable delays than Ireland. No country has played a greater role in the development of the jurisprudence of the Court of Human Rights or is more committed to ensuring continued and enhanced protection for human rights than Ireland.

No Member of the House would disagree with these three propositions. Why, therefore, is Ireland, which should have been first, now among the last of the Council of Europe countries to ratify Protocol 11? As a result of the Government's delay, Ireland has been held up before Europe as one of the laggards whose failure to act has prevented the introduction of desperately needed and already agreed reform of the institution established by the European Convention on Human Rights. Members of the House are entitled to an explanation for this sorry and shabby delay, for this lost chance of leadership gone a-begging.

The purpose of this reform is to effect a radical restructure of the control machinery set in place by the convention. It is intended that the present structure will be swept away and replaced by a single court which will be permanently located in Strasbourg and which will deal with the work of the present commission and court. If the convention is ratified by all states and enters into force it will greatly simplify the processing of complaints made against states under the convention. The need for this simplification springs from the extraordinary success of the Court and Commission of Human Rights. The court has now become a victim of its own success — it is flooded with cases and is likely to experience an even greater upsurge in the coming years.

Fourteen states, including Ireland, signed the convention in 1950. As of 1 July last there were 33 contracting states, while six states had signed, subject to ratification. The convention now spreads its protection from the Atlantic Ocean to the Urals. The present structure has been in operation for almost 40 years. While there is a permanent secretariat in Strasbourg the court and commission are part time institutions. This is so despite the extraordinary increase in the workload of the court and commission over the past 40 years. During its first 18 years of operation the court delivered 26 judgments while it delivered 472 judgments during the second 18 years. In 1995 it delivered 55 judgments. In 1975 335 applications were registered with the Commission of Human Rights, while in 1995 3,481 applications were registered.

Members will be aware of the vast range of matters which have come before the court and commission — the right to life; torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment; corporal punishment in schools or as a judicial punishment; the rights of psychiatric patients; length of judicial proceedings; the legal status of children born outside marriage; the law on homosexual activities; freedom of expression, including the freedom of the press and the freedom of artistic creation; freedom to engage in trade union activities; property rights etc.

This enormous growth in activity has clearly overburdened the court and on its own would warrant a radical restructuring in Strasbourg. However, added to this has been the enormous increase from 14 to 33 in the number of contracting states as of 1 July last. Every state that joins is a new source of case work for the court and commission. The present system in Strasbourg cannot survive much longer. This is all the more reason the Government should be ashamed for delaying so long in bringing this vital reform before the House.

At present a person applying to have a complaint heard by the Commission of Human Rights must wait five years from the date of lodging that complaint for a date for a final judgment by the Court of Human Rights, if the matter goes that far. The European Convention on Human Rights requires that all persons should have a hearing within a reasonable time. Nobody could claim a five year delay is reasonable. It is unacceptable that the Court and the Commission of Human Rights fail to comply with the Convention's requirements. Far from getting better, if radical action such as that proposed by Protocol 11, is not taken quickly, the system will collapse. Respect for, and confidence in the system carefully built up over the past 40 years is likely to disappear.

The current system provides for two structures in Strasbourg. The first structure is the Commission of Human Rights. In general terms it decides if a case is admissible and presents an opinion on the case. If the case is not subsequently settled it will usually proceed to the Court of Human Rights. By the time applicants have their cases concluded in the Court of Human Rights they will have had two hearings — one in the Commission of Human Rights and another in the court. There is a general view, with which I agree, that this creates unnecessary duplication and that an essential part of any reform must be the abolition of this duplication.

The Protocol, if and when it comes into operation, will provide for necessary restructuring in the system. The existing Commission and Court of Human Rights will disappear. It is intended their functions will be taken over by a new permanent court which will continue to be situated in Strasbourg. Thus, the proposed human rights monitoring machinery will comprise a single structure, the new European Court of Human Rights. Unlike the present court and Commission, the new court will operate on a full-time basis. We hope the new system will be able to deal more efficiently with the heavy workload than the existing two-tier system. To do so it will be necessary for the working system of the new court to be carefully designed to ensure that cases are dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible, but that will not happen of its own accord. If the Government's sloppy handling of Ireland's ratification is anything to go by, it will have little input into this important aspect of the new system. I hope the Minister accords the highest priority possible to ensuring that streamlined procedures are introduced so that when the new system comes on stream it will realise all our hopes for the continued efficient processing of these important cases.

It is hoped the ratification process will be completed some time in the coming year. One year later the Protocol will enter into force. I understand by then there will be approximately 40 contracting states to the Convention. Under the new system, as with the old, one judge will be elected in respect of each contracting state. This should ensure a sufficiently large pool of judicial personnel to allow a number of courts sit at the same time. We have seen how our Supreme Court system has developed, we regularly have two Supreme Courts sitting at the same time. I hope our experience in this regard, in so far as it can be helpful to the Council of Europe, will be brought to the attention of the appropriate authorities by the Minister.

As I pointed out earlier, no country in the Council of Europe has been more committed to the Human Rights system than Ireland. Members of this House and of the public will be aware of the small but important number of cases involving this country in which important human rights have been established, not just for the people of this country, but for the Council of Europe. We are justifiably proud of the fine contribution made by Irish people to the development of this great human rights structure. For many years our distinguished jurist, Mr. Justice Brian Walsh, has represented this country with great distinction on the Court of Human Rights and continues to do so. Irish officials have played a distinguished role in negotiation of this complex Protocol and we are entitled to be proud of their achievements. I join the Minister in paying tribute to Ms Jane Liddy for her work in this area. It is regrettable that the Minister was unable to bring the Protocol before the Dáil for approval earlier, not two and a half years late.

While I welcome the reform of the Strasbourg system, I sound a warning note about the possibly over-optimistic hopes for its effectiveness. The new single court will have to do the work of the previous court and commission combined. It will have to work its way through an enormous backlog and deal with the vastly increased number of member states, each one with its individual reservoir of cases. It will have to deal with new member states, many of them from former Iron Curtain countries, almost all of which recently joined the Council of Europe or are expected to do so shortly. For historical reasons, those countries have little or no effective system on which individuals can rely for the protection of their human rights. Their expectations for the Convention on Human Rights are naturally great, but with the best will in the world it will take many years before their legislative structures are in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights. It is to be expected, therefore, that many cases will arise from those countries. If that is the case, the number of cases arising on a pro rata basis will be far in excess of previous numbers. This will result in an even bigger backlog.

I strongly urge member states of the Council of Europe to bear in mind that this new system, while undoubtedly an improvement, is unlikely to be the panacea for all their problems. I note a tendency in recent years to develop further areas of responsibility for the court. I urge Ireland's fellow members to resist this temptation, at least for the present. We cannot afford to overload the new court to the extent that it will be incapable of performing the functions accorded to it so as to provide a hearing for applicants within a reasonbale time in accordance with article 6 of the Convention. The new structure must not fail. It must be given time to deal with the enormous workload it will inherit and to work out its own procedures so that the legacy of the first 40 years is carried through to the new system and that in the 21st century the member states of the Council of Europe can erect a shining beacon of respect for human rights to light Europe and the world beyond.

Mr. O'Malley

I support the motion. It is regrettable that it is more than two and a half years since Ireland signed the Protocol. We are entitled to an explanation as to why it has taken so long to bring it before the House. As I am sure Members will not vote against it, it is not likely to be defeated. The Minister made a useless speech, it is a précis of the explanatory report to the Protocol provided by the Council of Europe. It contained nothing that is not in the report we have already read. There is no point in the Minister coming in here to give a shortened version of what we already know. The Minister for Foreign Affairs did not come in to take the motion. The Minister for Equality and Law Reform dealt with it, but he has now left the House and I presume will not reply to the debate.

We should be told who has ratified the Protocol. I gather the majority of member states have done so. If those who have not are having difficulties with its ratification we should be told.

The Government should also give its view on the position of some of the more recent member states of the Council of Europe and signatories to the Convention on Human Rights. Due to the undemocratic background from which many of those countries have happily emerged, their judicial and penal systems leave a great deal to be desired and are not in accord with the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights. I have in mind, in particular, the judicial and penal systems in Russia, which are quite appalling. People are kept in custody there, often for many years, before they are tried and it is not unusual for defendants to die in custody because of the conditions in which they are kept. The Russian authorities agree the conditions are intolerable, but say they have no money to improve them. I thought there would be a huge rush of applications from citizens of some eastern European countries to the court, but I do not know if it will be able to hear them because of the requirement that all domestic remedies must first be exhausted. It is impossible to exhaust domestic remedies in some of those countries because one cannot get a domestic remedy in them. How do people in those countries stand vis-à-vis the court?

On reading the Protocol, it appears totally to recast the convention. If it recasts it totally and fundamentally, certainly in so far as the machinery of the convention is concerned, the question arises as to whether a new convention should be adopted. If that has not been done, we have a Protocol which repeals parts of the convention, repeals several of the existing Protocols and amends much of the convention. Towards the end of the explanatory report there is a somewhat convoluted explanation as to why this is being done by way of a Protocol rather than by way of a new convention, namely, to avoid an apparent overlap in jurisdictions which would otherwise arise. That should be spelt out more clearly because we now have a new document rather than the original document of 1953.

Getting rid of the commission and having one institution where there were previously two may, on the face of it, appear a rationalising move, but what is proposed here in terms of the grand chamber, the chambers and the committees is so complex that it will not necessarily save any time. The length of time taken in dealing with an application to the court, which is fully considered, is extraordinarily long.

Paragraph 21 on page 22 of the explanatory report states that it takes on average over five years for a case to be finally determined by the court under the present circumstances. A long list of procedural requirements is set out in the outline of procedure in paragraph 52 on page 26 of the explanatory report, which surely cannot be any shorter than the present system. It is very important that only in the most exceptional cases a normal application should go to the grand chamber.

The Minister suggested in his speech that any one of the parties can request a hearing by the grand chamber after a decision by the chamber which heard the case. If that were so, the grand chamber would effectively be simply a court of appeal from individual chambers. That would be very undersirable except in exceptional cases because of the lengthy delay it would virtually perpetuate.

The explanatory report differs from the Minister's speech. Paragraph 46 on page 25 of the explanatory report states that only the parties may request that the case be referred to the grand chamber for a rehearing. That suggests that both parties must request it. Which version is correct? This is one of the few places the Minister's speech deviates from what is set out in the explanatory report.

The House should bear in mind that if any one member state fails to ratify the convention it appears the Protocol and the new system cannot come into effect. There are references in the document to all the member states, which are contracting parties to the convention, having to ratify it and the new institution being established 12 months after the last ratification has taken place. That matter should be clarified because it would be unacceptable if, for example, one member state was able to hold up the whole procedure because of failure to ratify the convention. None of these matters has been made clear in the Minister's speech and, accordingly, it is necessary to raise them.

I will move from the detail to the history of the convention, the commission and the court during the past 40 years. We must all welcome and admire the work of those institutions, express our gratitude for it and the hope that in the years to come they will develop into an even more successful institution. Its workload will be hugely increased by a combination of the greater complexity of modern life and by the advent of formerly undemocratic states in eastern Europe where the court may well be faced with great difficulties in how it will vindicate human rights, given the inadequacy of some domestic judicial system there.

Another matter with which the Council of Europe generally and the court must come to terms is the question of the death penalty. It is still very widely used in a number of eastern European countries and is totally incompatible with the spirit if not the letter of the convention. It should be a prerequisite for member states, which are contracting parties to the convention, to abandon the death penalty as a form of punishment because it will not be appropriate in the Europe of the 21st century.

Another difficulty will arise in regard to certain Balkan states in the former Yugoslavia. I do not know how they can operate this convention given the history of what has happened there in recent years and the absence of a satisfactory judicial system in some of those republics. I do not know, for example, how the Council of Europe proposes to deal with the type of situation that exists in Kosovo where 90 per cent of the population are deprived of their fundamental human rights by a minority of 10 per cent and an adjoining power. The Council of Europe, and the Court, would be better employed in dealing with these fundamental cases of human rights than with some of the exotic matters it has dealt with recently. On much of this Continent there is a need to vindicate the fundamental right to life and liberty of millions of people. That is the task the Council of Europe and this court should undertake. I wish them well in that task.

Mr. M. Kitt

I welcome the fact that we are approving, although late, the terms of this convention. I do not understand why ther has been a delay of up to two and a half years on this. Perhaps we are rushing to debate it because the European Council is coming up.

A discussion on a Council of Europe convention is welcome. As a member of the Council of Europe, I found very little discussion in the Dáil of the various conventions signed and ratified in Europe. For example, there are conventions relating to minority languages which have been in the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht for some years. There has also been a convention on regional development and there has been no action to sign up to or ratify any of them. The Minister of State made one point with which I agree, that European citizens are only now getting to know about the Council of Europe, the convention on human rights and the court because of the large number of countries which have recently joined the Council.

When I was on the Council of Europe in the early 1990s, many Eastern European countries joined. I have not had as distinguished a record there as the Acting Chairman but he will recall his involvement in the applications of those countries. There is an interesting device in the Council of Europe in relation to giving these countries "guest" status. If a country did not abide by the laws on pluralist democracy or the protection and promotion of fundamental principles of human rights and the rule of law, it would never get full membership of the Council of Europe. Examples are the death penalty, mistreatment of minorities or educational discrimination against minority languages. That has always been one of the principles of the Council of Europe and that "guest" status has always been very important in having countries ratify and comply with conventions.

I was on a committee that dealt with European non-member states. The committee was about to be abolished because every country in Eastern Europe had joined. However, many of those that had joined had not complied with the ratification into which they had entered and the committee was not abolished because it was mandated to see if countries were complying on human rights, pluralist democracies and freedoms for minorities.

There is a question of rationalisation when discussing the court which might be welcome. There is also a worry because of the backlog of cases but it looks as if those cases will be dealt with. I join Deputy Ray Burke in paying tribute to Mr. Justice Brian Walsh and the Irish member of the Human Rights Commission, Jane Liddy. Debate on this convention, Protocol 11, is welcome but I hope that we will have further opportunity to discuss other conventions that are lying in certain Ministers' Departments. We will be told there is no time in the House but there are Oireachtas Joint Committees on European and Foreign Affairs. It would be worthwhile if those committees could discuss these conventions. It would also give an opportunity to our members on the Council of Europe — we have four members and four substitute members — to take part in these debates, whether in committee or in the House. I welcome the debate and hope it will improve the situation in the court, especially the backlog of cases.

Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications (Mr. Stagg)

I thank Deputies for their contributions to the debate. There has been no unreasonable delay by Ireland in ratifying the Protocol. To date, just over half the ratifications required for the Protocol to enter into force have taken place. The practical steps for implementation of the changes brought about by the Protocol need careful study and are still being considered by a working party made up of past and present members of the court, he commission and the Council of Europe secretariat.

Those familiar with the system will realise it will take time to put the machinery into place. Deputy O'Malley asked for specific numbers of countries that have now ratified the Protocol; 40 countries have signed the Protocol, 24 have ratified it and 16 have not ratified it. Of that 16, ten are states that are all required to do so before the Protocol.

The length of time required by the present organs of the convention to rule on application is considered to be excessive. It is particularly embarrassing for the credibility of a control mechanism whose task includes monitoring the requirements that judgments are delivered in a reasonable time, as enshrined in Article 6 of the convention. On average, cases take four to six year to be completed from the time they are first lodged to the final judgment of the court. Over 90 per cent of cases are judged inadmissible and those take, on average, over 1 months to the completed. In 1991, the number of new applications was almost equalled by the number of applications disposed of. There were 1,648 cases registered and 1,620 disposed of. Owing to the rise in cases, more recent statistics show a widening gap between the cases registered and those disposed of. In 1995, the gap was 3,481 cases registered compared with 2,916 cases disposed of. All indications are that this trend will continue if remedial action is not taken.

While it is impossible to make bold predictions, Protocol 11, providing an institutional unification of both the control organs and their secretariats, should help to achieve a reduction in the length of time in procedures but there is no guarantee. The permanent nature of the new court is the same. The judges must refrain from any activities incompatible with the demands of full-time office. The terms and conditions of employment of the judges of the new court remain to be decided by the member tates of the Council of Europe. As I said earlier, the procedure for the nomination and election of judges to the new court will be the same as that for the present court, judges will be elected by the parliamentary assembly from a list of three candidates nominated by each contracting partner. It would be premature to enter discussion on this matter.

At present there are no cases against this State before the court. There are five cases pending before the Commission of which the Government is aware. The convention article No. 33 stipulates that the Commission shall meet in camera. Because of the confidentiality of proceedings before the Commission I cannot provide details of the cases in question. With the exception of one case that has been declared admissible and in which the possibility of a friendly settlement is being pursued, the other four cases are at relatively early stages.

It is unlikely that the terms of Protocol 11 will give rise to an increase in the number of cases brought against the State as they do not add any new rights to the convention or alter the existing criteria for the admissibility of cases. It is not possible to say whether the anticipated shortening of the length of time it takes to process an application under the convention will, of itself, give rise to an increase in the number of cases against the State.

In recent years Ireland has made further progress in ensuring the protection of human rights guaranteed by the convention by ratifying three important Protocols, namely, Protocols 6, 9 and 10. Protocol 6 abolishes the death penalty in peacetime. Protocol 9 gives an individual the right to refer a case which has been declared inadmissible by the commission to the court in certain circumstances. Protocol 10, when it enters into force, will allow for an easier decision-making process by the committee of Ministers in cases referred to it under Article 32 of the convention.

It is the intention of the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs to begin the necessary consultation process with the relevant Departments aimed at the eventual ratification of Protocol 7 as soon as possible after Protocol 11 has been ratified. Protocol 7 adds a number of new substantive rights to the convention covering such matters as the rights of aliens, aspects of criminal law and equality of spouses.

In the broader context of its mission to defend human rights, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law, the Council of Europe, since 1989, has assumed a crucial role. It acts as the political anchor and human rights watchdog for Europe. This involves assisting the countries of central and eastern Europe in carrying out and consolidating political, legal and constitutional reform in parallel with economic reform.

The entry into force of the Protocols is becoming urgent with the recent surge in the number of accessions to the Council of Europe which now has 40 members. To serve the interests of the peoples of what is now a pan-European organisation in the best way, new control machinery is necessary for the convention which was originally conceived for ten or 12 member states. The Protocols have been signed by all of the state parties to the convention and ratified by 22 of the 32 state parties. It is hoped ratification by Ireland will encourage the remaining state parties to complete their procedures so that this new important mechanism can be put in place and become fully operational.

Question put and agreed to.