What’s the problem we want to solve?

Human rights, democracy and the rule of law are in trouble. Hungary and Poland are the most serious examples in the EU, where governments have interfered with the independence of their highest courts, the freedom of the press and the work of pro-democracy NGOs, among other things. But these problems are becoming more common, with cuts to the budgets of courts, smear campaigns against NGOs and government and business interference with free media spreading across the EU.

Why is it important for Liberties to work on this?

Human rights, democracy and the rule of law are fundamental safeguards created to protect human life and preserve peace. After World War Two, European governments decided that the horrific abuse of human beings that took place should never be allowed to happen again. They created minimum standards designed to prevent governments from being able to use their power to abuse the population. Some of these standards were designed to protect human dignity, like the right to life, the prohibition on torture and freedom from arbitrary detention. Some of these standards were designed to make sure that the democratic process works properly so that everyone in society can have a say over how their country is run and to prevent the spread of damaging propaganda; for example, the right to vote, freedom of the press, the right to public protest and to form organisations like NGOs. And some of the standards were designed to protect the rule of law by creating independent institutions to make sure that governments can’t break the rules; most importantly, the courts, to whom the public can turn for protection.

All of these standards are contained in international agreements created to protect human rights, such as the European Convention on Human Rights. No country is allowed to join the EU until it has shown that it has laws, policies and institutions in place to uphold these standards. But once a country joins the EU, the Union has few powers to make sure that a government continues to uphold these agreements. Our leaders thought it was so unlikely that countries would go back on their commitments after entering the Union that they only created one procedure to deal with the problem. And this procedure (Article 7 of the EU Treaty) is so difficult to activate that it has never been used.

What will Liberties be working towards?

Some EU governments have accepted that the Union needs new powers to make sure all member countries keep to their promises. In 2014, the European Commission created a ‘framework’ on the rule of law. This procedure allows the Commission to investigate and issue recommendations to governments that seriously undermine the independence of their courts. Liberties wants the Commission to use this power consistently: Poland has been investigated, while Hungary has not. In addition, Liberties doesn’t want the Commission to limit itself to looking at attacks on the courts but also to take into account when governments attack other players who are responsible for upholding the rule of law and democratic standards, like the media, ombudspersons and NGOs. Liberties also wants the Commission to use EU law to protect human rights standards, for example, by using rules on free movement of capital to prevent governments from blocking donations to NGOs from other EU countries.

In 2015, EU governments in the Council started holding an annual ‘rule of law dialogue’ to help protect the rule of law. But this mechanism is ineffective in its present form. Liberties wants the mechanism to include a discussion of each government’s rights record and for every country to receive recommendations to implement. Liberties also wants the European Parliament to create its own system of regular dialogue with each national parliament individually on its government’s rights record.

In the long-term, Liberties would like to see a regular monitoring process where every EU country discusses its rights record with the Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament as part of one mechanism. All EU governments are already monitored at the UN and Council of Europe regularly. So the EU shouldn’t repeat this exercise. Instead, it should use the new process to pressure EU countries to implement the recommendations made by these UN and Council of Europe bodies. And ultimately, the EU should be willing to use Article 7 to sanction governments.

Of course, international pressure is not enough by itself to ensure governments implement their obligations. So Liberties also wants the EU to support NGOs working at national level to promote understanding among the public as to why human rights, democracy and the rule of law are important for them and why they are worth defending. More on this in our upcoming article explaining our work on freedoms of NGOs.