A Draft resolutionNote
1. Access to justice is a human
right and an integral element of the rule of law. It is also an
enabling right, allowing those who consider that their rights have
been violated to enforce them and seek redress. Access to justice
is a fundamental requirement of democratic societies.
2. Access to justice is a cornerstone on the path towards full
and effective equality between women and men, and a fundamental
element of the international human rights system. The availability
and accessibility of effective remedies, adequate reparation and/or
compensation are part of ensuring genuine access to justice for
all women and girls, in all their diversity, which must be guaranteed
without discrimination on any ground.
3. Yet formal equality in legislation does not automatically
translate into substantive equality in practice. Persistent power
imbalances in society, and a failure to take into account gender-related
issues and bias mean that women and girls are still often denied
access to remedies and redress.
4. The barriers facing women in their access to justice are multiple.
Economic and social inequalities, gender bias and gender stereotypes
in the justice system lead to structural imbalances resulting in
a playing field far from level. Legal, institutional and socio-cultural
barriers generate women’s lack of trust on the justice system, leading
to high levels of under-reporting and attrition.
5. The difficulties and barriers that prevent women from enjoying
an effective access to justice affect them differently, as some
groups of women are exposed to multiple and intersecting forms of
discrimination, including lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex
(LBTI) women; migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking women; Roma and
Traveller women; women belonging to national, ethnic or religious
minorities; women with disabilities; older women; undocumented women;
and women human rights defenders.
6. In its
Resolution
2054 (2015) “Equality and non-discrimination in the access to justice”,
the Parliamentary Assembly called on member States to step up efforts
to remove legal, social, economic and cultural barriers to women’s
access to justice. The Assembly regrets that 11 years later, much
remains to be done.
7. All the Council of Europe Strategies on Gender Equality have
included the objective of “Ensuring equal access to justice for
women and girls”. Thematic guidance and tools on this issue have
been published over the years. The Gender Equality Strategy for
2024-2029 aims to increase the capacity of member States to remove
barriers and obstacles to women’s and girls’ access to justice.
8. Swift and reliable access to justice is particularly critical
for women and girls victims of gender-based violence. According
to the latest survey on gender-based violence in the European Union,
while one in three women have experienced violence, only one in
eight reported it to the police. The high prevalence of violence against
women online and offline requires giving priority to improving their
access to justice.
9. Many women and girls victims of violence experience long delays
in court proceedings and procedures that make them relive the trauma
they went through, while they face complex judicial procedures.
Legal assistance and free legal aid are essential for victims of
violence to secure their rights to justice, protection, compensation
and redress.
10. The Parliamentary Assembly expresses its concern at the high
prevalence of violence against women and the high level of impunity
for perpetrators, demonstrated in very low conviction rates. In
its
Resolution 2649 (2026) “Promoting the Istanbul Convention and improving its
implementation: building on lessons learnt”, the Assembly noted
the lack of awareness among women victims of violence about their
rights, as well as a lack of trust in the justice system.
11. Women who seek justice for gender-based violence are often
confronted with the stereotype of the “ideal victim”, facing disbelief,
blame, or diminished protection if they do not conform to it. Judicial
reasoning that relies on gender stereotypes, myths about sexual
violence, or assumptions about women’s credibility create structural
barriers to justice and perpetuate a discriminatory approach in
the institutions that should protect their rights.
12. The case law of the European Court of Human Rights also illustrates
this reality, as the Court has underlined that discriminatory judicial
passivity create a climate conducive to domestic violence and amounting to
a violation of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights
(ETS No. 5). The Court has also noted that the discriminatory passivity
of law enforcement authorities can be considered as a “systemic
failure”.
13. The Assembly stresses that it is of the utmost importance
that women and girls victims of violence can count on specialised
and well-trained law enforcement officers, legal and judicial professionals.
It welcomes the Network of specialised lawyers and NGOs assisting
victims of violence against women, created by the Council of Europe
to facilitate exchanges among lawyers and to serve as a knowledge-sharing
platform for strategic litigation on violence against women.
14. The Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women
and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) is witnessing an increasing number
of cases where women victims of violence who report it are faced
with retaliatory legal proceedings by the perpetrator. The Assembly
shares the concern of the growing misuse of legal systems as instruments
to silence, intimidate, or punish women who challenge discrimination,
violence, or unequal laws.
15. The Assembly calls for the effective implementation of General
Recommendation No. 33 on women’s access to justice, adopted by the
United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW) in 2015.
16. The Assembly also calls for the legal recognition of gender
apartheid as a means to combat this scourge which still continues
in many countries of the world.
17. The Assembly refers to the agreed conclusions adopted at the
70th edition of the Commission on the Status of Women, in March
2026, underlining that justice systems should respond to the needs
and rights of all women and girls.
18. The Assembly underlines the need to meet relevant targets
under the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
including targets 5.1, 5.2 and 16.3, to end all forms of discrimination
and violence against all women and girls, and ensure equal access
to justice for all.
19. The Assembly stresses the urgency of redoubling efforts to
combat the growing backlash against women’s rights, which is further
hindering their access to justice.
20. Recognising the urgent need to tackle the persistent barriers
to women’s access to justice, as a key building block to achieving
real gender equality in practice, the Assembly calls on Council
of Europe member States, and States whose parliament enjoy observer
or partner for democracy status with the Assembly to:
20.1 with regard to ensuring gender-sensitive
and gender-responsive justice systems:
20.1.1 ensure that legal and justice professionals are fully
trained on the barriers faced by women in accessing justice and
how to tackle them, including the use of the online course of the Council
of Europe Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP)
Programme on women’s access to justice;
20.1.2 promote the use of two Council of Europe Guides for legal
professionals: on women’s access to justice, and to develop a mentoring
programme on women’s access to justice;
20.1.3 ensure adequate and sustainable funding for justice facilities
and on and off-line services responding to the needs of women and
girls seeking redress;
20.1.4 ensure that evidentiary rules, investigations and other
legal procedures are impartial and free from gender stereotypes
or bias;
20.1.5 identify and address inadequate or discriminatory legal
frameworks or de facto practices that
discriminate against women in the workforce and in the workplace;
20.1.6 strengthen institutional co-ordination between law enforcement,
courts, prosecution services, legal aid, child protection and social
services to ensure timely and effective responses to the needs of
women and girls in accessing justice;
20.1.7 support and facilitate the work of civil society organisations
that assist women to access justice and redress;
20.1.8 ensure full access by women and girls to justice and reparation
in conflict and post-conflict settings, including investigation
and prosecution of the use of sexual violence as a weapon of conflict;
20.1.9 carry out data collection in the justice sector – disaggregated
by gender, age, marital status, migration status, disability – taking
into account the Council of Europe Guidelines on data collection
practices relevant for women’s access to justice, to monitor progress
on achieving justice for all women and girls;
20.1.10 conduct research and gender analyses of justice systems
to identify practices, procedures and jurisprudence that either
facilitate or limit women’s access to justice, and use them for
evidence-based policy formulation;
20.2 with regard to improving access to justice for women and
girls victims of gender-based violence and domestic violence:
20.2.1 ratify, if it is not yet the
case, and put into practice the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing
and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (CETS
No. 210);
20.2.2 provide accessible information to women victims of violence
about their rights and how to access justice;
20.2.3 ensure an effective access to legal aid for women victims
of violence;
20.2.4 provide compulsory initial and in-service training for
judges, prosecutors, lawyers and law enforcement officers, following
a victim-centred and trauma-informed approach to prevent secondary
victimisation, covering the additional barriers faced by women with
disabilities, migrant women, women in prostitution, women with addictions,
women in rural areas, older women, and LBTI women;
20.2.5 use of the online courses of the HELP Programme on violence
against women and domestic violence, including the course addressed
to law enforcement officials and the new short course on technology-facilitated
violence against women and girls;
20.2.6 take measures to address judicial bias and eliminate gender
stereotyping in courtrooms, ensure accurate legal qualification
of gender-based violence, impose sanctions that reflect the seriousness
of such offences, and guarantee victim-centred procedures that prevent
secondary victimisation;
20.2.7 provide the necessary resources for law enforcement to
investigate and prosecute the growing number of cases of gender-based
violence against women, including technology-facilitated violence
such as online stalking, the non-consensual sharing of intimate
images, privacy violations, misogynistic hate speech campaigns and
image manipulation;
20.2.8 collect comparable administrative and judicial data, disaggregated
by sex, age, type of violence and the relationship between the victim
and perpetrator, covering all forms of violence against women;
20.2.9 ensure co-operation and information sharing between criminal
courts and family courts in cases of violence against women, including
training on the dynamics of violence for judges and court-appointed
experts in cases of separation, child custody and visitation rights;
20.2.10 address the minimisation of domestic violence claims in
parental separation and child custody cases, based on ill-founded
concepts such as “parental alienation”, which have no scientific
basis;
20.2.11 ensure that mandatory alternative dispute resolution processes
are strictly prohibited in all cases of violence against women;
20.2.12 improve legislation, protocols and practices on conducting
risk assessments and on the implementation of emergency barring
orders and protection orders, and pay increased attention during
investigations to any history of gender-based violence;
20.2.13 analyse and address the reasons for the low rates of prosecution
and conviction in cases of violence against women, in online and
offline environments, including the reasons and obstacles behind
the low reporting rates.
