Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights – stock-taking and perspectives
Reply to Recommendation
| Doc. 11987
| 08 July 2009
- Author(s):
- Committee of Ministers
- Origin
- adopted
at the 1062nd meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies (1 July 2009) 2009 - Fourth part-session
- Reply to Recommendation
- : Recommendation 1816
(2007)
2. In this, the year of the tenth anniversary of the institution
of the Commissioner, the Committee of Ministers’ assessment of the
Commissioner’s contribution to the effectiveness of the Council
of Europe as a whole is unambiguously positive. The institution
has matured rapidly and assumed an authoritative and recognised
role in the promotion and defence of human rights. The Committee
seizes the opportunity presented by this reply to pay tribute to
the two architects of this role: the first Commissioner, Álvaro
Gil-Robles, who laid the foundations, and his successor Thomas
Hammarberg, who has continued to develop the edifice, adapting it
to new needs and expectations.
3. The Committee of Ministers recalls in this connection that
in the Declaration of Madrid adopted at its 119th Session on 12
May 2009, in paragraph 4 it declared that the Commissioner “carries
out his mandate in an outstanding way through action in the field
and sustained dialogue with member states. The Commissioner’s activity
has become fundamental, including in times of crisis. We shall continue
to lend him our active support …”.
4. In the light of this assessment, the Committee responds to
the specific observations formulated by the Assembly as follows:
- as regards the Assembly’s injunction
to respect the Commissioner’s independence at all levels (1.1),
the Committee wishes to assure the Assembly that it is strongly
attached to the notion of independence as an important means of
maintaining the Commissioner’s effectiveness in the exercise of
his role;
- as regards the allocation of funds (1.2), the Committee
notes that new lines of action and new expectations are making calls
on the resources available to the Commissioner, particularly as
he has completed the cycle of country assessment visits and intends
henceforth to make his activities more targeted and more proactive.
Recalling that, as a result of the progressive implementation of
Chapter V of the Warsaw Action Plan, the Commissioner’s budget has
increased, the Committee expresses its determination to be highly
attentive to the future needs of the Commissioner, keeping in mind
both the ongoing contribution and the new expectations mentioned
above;
- as regards the Annual Tripartite Meeting (1.3), informal
but substantive contacts were held in 2008 between the Chair of
the Ministers’ Deputies, the Commissioner and the Rapporteur of
the Assembly’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights. Participants discussed
the possible role of tripartite meetings, the contribution that
each party should bring to them and the necessary limitations on
such contributions, and the expected benefits of such tripartite
consultation. The matter will be taken up again;
- having regard to the need for support for national human
rights structures (1.4), this is an important element in the Council
of Europe’s policy on the promotion and protection of human rights
in member states, and one in which the Commissioner himself plays
a leading role, in the context both of his visits and of annual
round tables. Since the inception of his Office, the Commissioner
has increasingly become the centre of a continental network of national
human rights institutions and the Committee has yet to be convinced
that the synergies thus created would be improved by the adoption
of a normative text.
