Séamus Hughes
Ceist:19 Mr. Hughes asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will inform Dáil Éireann of the current position in relation to the reform of the European Court of Human Rights. [11478/97]
Written Answers. - European Court of Human Rights.
At present, enforcement of the rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights is carried out by the European Commission and Court of Human Rights and by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. 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, more member states have accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the court and new member states have joined the Council of Europe. This has led to a backlog of applications before the Commission and a lengthening of the time taken to hear cases. Such delays threaten the effectiveness of the system as a means of protecting human rights.
At the Council of Europe Vienna Summit in October 1993 the heads of state and Government agreed unanimously on the replacement of the existing European Commission and Court of Human Rights by a single Court. Protocol 11 (eleven) to the European Convention on Human Rights, which was drawn up to introduce these reforms, was opened for signature on 11 May 1994. Ireland signed the Protocol on that occasion and it was ratified on 16 December 1996 following Dáil approval. The Protocol will enter into force one year following its ratification by all states party to the convention. As of 3 March 1997 the Protocol had been signed by all forty member states of the Council of Europe; ratificaton is still required by Italy, Poland, Portugal and Turkey to allow the Protocol to enter into force.
The new court will have jurisdiction in all matters concerning the interpretation application of the convention and the protocols thereto. In order to be heard by the Commission at present, the state against which an individual petition 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 most do so only for renewable periods. Following a proposal by Ireland at the Vienna Summit and the subsequent unanimous agreement of member states, Protocol No. 11 will make it a permanent and mandatory requirement for contracting states to accept the right of individuals to petition the new court directly.
The new court will exercise the functions which are at present performed by the Commission; it will filter out applications at an early stage in cases in which domestic legal measures have clearly not been exhausted, in cases where the application has not been submitted within the required six months of a final domestic ruling or where the subject matter of the application is not covered by the convention The new court will assume the existing Commission's role of establishing the facts with the co-operation of the parties.Final judgments of the court will be binding and the Committee of Ministers will, as at present, continue to supervise their execution. The provision for the Committee of Ministers to decide whether there has been a violation of the convention, currently provided for under the convention, will be abolished under Protocol 11, as the new court will in effect give a judgment on all cases considered admissible and not resolved through friendly settlement.