The European Convention on Human Rights is crucial to maintaining stability and liberty on the continent, and the Council of Europe’s task is to help its States implement it, to “sow the Convention into the national legal fabric”, said Council of Europe’s Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland today, opening the 2016 annual network conference of HELP (the European Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals).
Jagland stressed that only thanks to the shared legal vocabulary and principles of the Convention has the Council of Europe managed to implement some important initiatives in 2015-2016 – to assist Ukraine in its constitutional reform to facilitate the political settlement of the conflict, to send a human rights monitoring mission to Crimea, or to negotiate the first international treaty to clamp down on foreign terrorist fighters.
“Where politics stalls, the Convention can move us forward,” he said, referring to the situation of Poland with its controversial reforms of the Constitutional Court and the country’s media law. Jagland noted that the Council of Europe is now having a constructive and open dialogue with the Polish authorities to improve the draft laws on public service media, to make sure the new legislation is aligned with the Council of Europe standards.
He praised the new important developments in the HELP programme related to training lawyers on issues related to asylum, hate crime and discrimination, as well as on EU-related matters.
The conference focuses on the role of legal professionals in defending human rights and preserving the human rights protection system in the times of crisis, and the harmonisation of national case law in the Council of Europe member States. It is organised under the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers’ Chairmanship of Estonia.