Proposition de résolution en vue de la ratification du protocole facultatif à la convention des Nations unies contre la torture et autres peines ou traitements cruels, inhumains ou dégradants (OPCAT).
General information ¶
- Authors
- Vooruit Bruno Tuybens, Dirk Van der Maelen
- Submission date
- Sept. 16, 2010
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Adopted
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- UN convention torture international agreement resolution of parliament ratification of an agreement human rights cruel and degrading treatment
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- Groen Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld MR
- Abstained from voting
- CD&V ∉ N-VA LDD VB
Contact form ¶
Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.
Discussion ¶
July 19, 2011 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
Rapporteuse Christiane Vienne ⚙
As regards my report on the three draft resolutions, I refer to the written reports.
If I intervene, it is on behalf of my group.
Beyond the particular, but how essential, aspects of the ratification of the international protocols covered by these three resolutions, I would like to bring a global reflection.
For my group, guaranteeing respect for human rights in all its aspects, both complex and important, is essential. Therefore, the importance of these resolutions, the importance of the ratification of the various international texts that they require should not be neglected, quite the opposite.
These different rights, whether it be to prohibit the use of torture, to ratify Protocol No. 12 to the International Convention on Human Rights or to strengthen economic, social and cultural rights, must be assured in the facts, ⁇ in the framework of the next Universal Periodic Review.
I would also like to emphasize the importance of Belgian and international institutions such as the Centre for Equal Opportunities, which are actively working to monitor our legal rights, but who remain vigilant to ensure that these are well integrated into practice.
Our country has never failed to act in this direction within the various international and European forums. We can be proud of this while remaining proactive about the ratification and effective implementation of these international texts. These texts, these debates, of which some may think they constitute achievements, seem to go of course, but this is not true. These questions remain battles, even sometimes at home, battles whose outcome is never obtained.
These ratifications remind us that banning from our societies all acts or behaviors, which can still be perceived today, near or far, as violations of fundamental freedoms, remains a question of democracy to which we are ⁇ attached.
I thank you for your attention.
Bruno Tuybens Vooruit ⚙
Mr. Speaker, colleagues, thank you also to Mrs. Vienne for her presentation. The agreement is indeed that we will discuss these three resolutions together.
It is ⁇ important that our country effectively complete the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment during the next parliamentary year 2011-2012. This international treaty, which should have been ratified for a long time, remains in our country for the time being dead letter. This is ⁇ regrettable, as it provides, among other things, for the establishment of a necessary control mechanism on the rights of detained persons. This Protocol was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 18 December 2002 and has been in force since 2006. Currently, 69 countries have signed this Protocol, of which 52 have ratified the Protocol, including our neighbors France, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom. The Protocol provides for a system of regular visits, carried out by national and international independent bodies, to the places where persons deprived of their liberty are located in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Despite various promises made by our country at the international level, no progress has been made in this dossier. It may have to do with the fact that there are political difficulties in establishing a national supervisory mechanism. The ratification must be submitted to all legislative bodies, both at the federal and Community level. Also important is the establishment of a Human Rights Committee provided for by the Protocol. Several EU Member States have already set up such a committee. Although Belgium has a Centre for Equal Opportunities and for Combating Racism, this centre was granted only a B status in 1999 under the Paris Principles and therefore does not meet the requirements of an independent national human rights institution.
I therefore hope that this Optional Protocol, commonly called OPCAT, will be ratified as soon as possible. We must require the Minister of Justice to submit a consent file to the FOD Foreign Affairs. The pilot department, the FOD Justice, must do its job here. As long as there is no consent file to the FOD Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Foreign Affairs cannot invoke urgency. Therefore, we must effectively urge the FOD Justice, and as far as we are concerned with the Minister of Justice, to submit the consent file as soon as possible.
The second protocol is the Protocol No. 12 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The federal government recently made a decision to complete the ratification process. Currently, 37 countries have signed the protocol. Eighteen countries have ratified the protocol. Our country signed this protocol in November 2000. Meanwhile, eleven years later, we seem to fail to ratify the protocol. The Protocol provides for a general prohibition of discrimination. Until now, the prohibition of discrimination in the European Convention on Human Rights could only be applied against discrimination in the exercise of the other rights of the Convention.
Central to this Protocol is that the enjoyment of any right defined by the law shall be ensured without any discrimination and that no one shall be discriminated by any public authority on any of the grounds listed in the Protocol, such as gender, race, color, language, religion, political or other opinions, national or social origin, belonging to a national minority, property, birth or other status. Therefore, we here ask that this Protocol be made enforceable, in order thus to eliminate any form of discrimination from our society.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, there is the third resolution that deals with the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
In the aforementioned resolution, it is important to point out that there is no hierarchy between human rights. Civil and political rights are equally valuable compared to economic, social and cultural rights. Human rights are indivisible and inalienable.
Therefore, the Optional Protocol should also be ratified effectively and essentially.
Our country was among the first group of countries that signed the protocol. That is not the point. On 24 September 2009, our country effectively signed the protocol. Meanwhile, thirty-five other countries have signed it. Only three countries have so far ratified the Protocol.
We believe that Parliament should ratify the Protocol quickly and proceed to the ratification and implementation of the Protocol quickly. The ratification would mean that the Protocol would also establish an individual right of complaint at the international level for the various categories and for the full diversity of human rights. Those rights would be protected and enforced in the same way.
I hope that the various ministers will do their job. For the third protocol, the FOD Employment must, in fact, prepare the consent dossier, which has not yet happened. We have submitted questions to the competent Minister. Once the consent file is prepared, the Department of Foreign Affairs can do its job.
Colleagues, we also cannot submit ratification of an international treaty or protocol through a bill. This must be done through resolutions. I am a cool lover of resolutions. However, to draw attention to the current problem, there is no other option.
Therefore, I hope that with the adoption of the present resolutions we can take further steps. I also hope that the Government will be encouraged in this way, so as not to forget the protocols, but to effectively submit all instruments to Parliament, so that ratification can be finalized, and so, as the resolution also stipulates, before the end of February 2012.
I would like to thank you in advance for your support for this initiative.