17/04/2012 President
Strasbourg, 19.04.2012 – States must first and foremost guarantee the effective protection of human rights at national level, PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon has told ministers and state representatives at the opening of the high-level conference on reform of the European Court of Human Rights in Brighton. Together with the political action of the Council of Europe as a whole, this would enable the Court to “play its role to the full”, he said.
He asked if the Court had become “a victim of deficiencies at the national level”, pointing out that about 80 per cent of applications to the Court come from just ten states out of the 47 covered by its jurisdiction.
He also called for “enhanced recognition” of the role of the Parliamentary Assembly and national parliaments in ensuring compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. “It is important that national parliaments systematically check that draft legislation is compatible with the Convention, that they closely monitor the action taken to execute judgments against their states, and that they ensure that changes to national legislation are in line with the measures recommended by the Court,” he stressed.