The Parliamentary Assembly underlines the importance of the work carried out by the monitoring mechanisms of the Council of Europe, such as the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the Group of States against corruption (GRECO), the European Social Charter, the Group of Experts of action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA), the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money-Laundering Measures and the financing of terrorism (MONEYVAL) and the Conference of the Parties under the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism.
According to the respective Conventions and Statutes, members should be chosen only for their competence and experience in the field. In order for the monitoring mechanisms to maintain the high quality of their work, a careful selection process of their experts is therefore essential.
The Assembly recalls that the Committee of Ministers has recently set up an advisory panel of experts on candidates for election as judges to the European Court of Human RIghts with the function of advising States Parties to the European Convention on Human RIghts – before the latter transmit lists of candidates to the Assembly – whether candidates for election meet the criteria of the Convention.
In line with such increasing transparency and with a view to reinforcing the quality of expertise in the monitoring mechanisms, a stock-taking exercise should be carried out also for monitoring mechanisms. The Assembly therefore resolves to study the question of selection of members of monitoring mechanisms of the Council of Europe.