MOSCOW, December 2 (Sputnik) — The UK Joint Committee on Human Rights urged the government Tuesday to discuss in both Houses Protocol 15, which makes important amendments to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), before ratifying it.
"This treaty makes an important change to the Convention which recognizes the crucial role, played by elected politicians in relation to human rights. It has to be a good thing for governments – and parliaments – who are part of this system to have to take more responsibility for the protection of human rights at the national level, and we feel that this change contained in the Protocol has the potential to accomplish that," Dr Hywel Francis, the Chair of the Committee, said in a statement, published on the official website of the UK Parliament.
Dr Francis added that it is "vital that our Government arrange for debates in both Houses on this Protocol before it is ratified so that Members of Parliament can discuss the implications of this for the way they scrutinize the Government – and so the Government sets out how it intends to take forward its own enhanced responsibility in this area."
The European Convention on Human Rights is one of the Council of Europe's major international agreements. It was drafted in 1950 and came into effect in 1953. The Convention defines the inalienable rights and freedoms for everyone and obliges the member states to guarantee those rights to any person under their jurisdiction. Any person, whose rights have been violated, can take a case to the European Court of Human Rights established by the Convention.
Each protocol, amending the framework of the Convention, needs to be signed by all 47 member states of the Council of Europe.
