25/01/2024 | 18:06:55 Thank you, Mister President. Dear colleagues, The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights was requested to provide an opinion on the report Countering SLAPPs: an imperative for a democratic society. Unfortunately, the rapporteur for opinion Mr Davor Ivo STIER is unable to be present. He asked me to speak on his behalf in my capacity as the Chair of the Committee. The rapporteur Mr STIER would like to congratulate Mr Stefan SCHENNACH, as would I, and the Culture Committee for what is an... 24/01/2024 | 19:50:06 Thank you, Mister President. Colleagues, Our Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights adopted this Report in June last year. The Report is based on a motion of resolutions tabled by our Committee which was merged with another reference sent to us by the Bureau called "Cases of torture and inhumane treatments in Azerbaijani prisons". We held a hearing with the President of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), Dr Alan Mitchell, as well as with two experts from Russia... 23/01/2024 | 19:37:50 Mister President, members of the Assembly, I fear that too often speakers conflate the issue of refugees and asylum on the one hand and the separate and distinct issue of immigrants and migration. As we know asylum in international law is the protection granted by a state to foreign citizen threatened by persecution in their own state or faced by exceptional danger in their own state. Such a person can properly be referred to as a refugee. That is Article 1 of the UN Refugee Convention, which... 21/06/2023 | 19:20:24 Thank you Madam Chair and colleagues, Subject to the principles of effective protection and legality, a national government must be entitled to apply convention rights and other international obligations as they consider appropriate. That reflects the principle of subsidiarity and the requirement for a margin of appreciation to be extended or afforded to national governments. The present report attempts to address issues with respect to the Bill of Rights and the UK Illegal Migration Bill... 25/04/2023 | 18:30:51 Thank you, Madam Chair, colleagues, I would like to address the margin of appreciation. That term is not found in the original Convention or in the travaux préparatoires. It emerged in the late 1950s and has developed as an important part of the Commission's jurisprudence. Broadly speaking, it refers to the room for manoeuver that the Strasbourg authorities must accord to national governments when considering their obligations under the convention. A failure to concede that margin to national... 24/01/2023 | 18:56:17 Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation to the rapporteur for the very considerable task that has been undertaken here. The report and many speakers this evening refer to the need for us to restate our commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law, but I pause to notice that during the past two years, we have produced at least seven reports that restate our commitments to democracy, human rights and the rule of law. For the purposes of a Summit... 12/10/2022 | 18:40:36 Thank you, Mister Vice-President. In addressing this matter I'll make particular reference to the second report on pushback. Members, Following the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, international law came to recognise the territorial integrity of state borders, and the absolute right of a nation state to protect those borders. Of course, in more recent times the international community recognised the need to mitigate the implications of that fundamental right. That developed what became the UN...