On 4 June 2019 the Council of Europe Programme “Promoting a human rights compliant criminal justice system in the Republic of Moldova”, funded by the Government of Norway, organised an International Conference on Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights “Right to Liberty and Security” in partnership with the National Institute of Justice of the Republic of Moldova.
The importance of the right to liberty and security has been recognised for many centuries. It finds expression in a number of important antecedents to international human rights treaties, such as the Magna Carta of 1215, the American and French Constitutions of the 1700s and the English concept of Habeas Corpus.
The essential purpose of Article 5 of the European Convention of Human Rights, the key pan-European instrument governing a human rights observance in 47 member states of the Council of Europe, is to guarantee the protection of the individual’s physical liberty against arbitrary detention.
The conference brought together around 80 participants from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Russia and Ukraine. The attendees represented the national authorities, including the institutions mandated to provide training to judges, prosecutors and lawyers; international development partners and civil society.
The conference provided a forum for in-depth dialogue on the principles of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights in comparative context and their implementation in practice. The following breaches of the right to liberty and security were discussed:
- failure to ensure a prompt examination of the lawfulness of the detention;
- lack of relevant and sufficient reasons for ordering or extending the detention;
- unlawful detention, despite the higher court’s decision to quash the detention order;
- unjustified refusals to let the defence access the case files, etc.
The conference also provided an opportunity for the participants to exchange opinions and ideas on the challenges faced by the criminal justice sector in the Republic of Moldova and the countries in the region, primarily as regards the application of the pre-trial detention, as along with the possibilities for its further development. In this regard the methodology for conducting a research on the application of pre-trial detention in the Republic of Moldova, developed by the Council of Europe consultants and currently implemented at national level, as well as preliminary findings of this research, were presented during the conference.
The Programme “Promoting a human rights compliant criminal justice system in the Republic of Moldova”, funded by the Government of Norway is part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for the Republic of Moldova for 2017-2020.