Russia and the Council of Europe

Phil Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I thank the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) for securing this timely debate. It is important that the subject is being discussed in the House.

Our argument is not with the Russian people, but with the Russian Government and—dare I say it—the elite. It will be the Russian people who end up suffering—in fact, they are suffering—because of Russia’s self-imposed suspension from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Let us not forget that it is the Russians who do not present their credentials at the Council on an annual basis. Russia has also suspended its €33 million payment to the Council and has threatened to withdraw from it entirely. If it did that, access to the European Court of Human Rights would be denied to Russian citizens, whose cases take up a disproportionate amount of its time: about one third of the cases brought concern Russia.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said that we could go on forever listing the types of cases, but there are a few that we need to mention: the imprisonment of children, phone tapping of journalists, holding prisoners in cages, failing to investigate high-profile murders, torture and detaining lawyers and judges. The Russian Constitutional Court has ruled that Russia should not be bound by all international human rights obligations. In June 2016 the Venice Commission for democracy—a body of the Council of Europe—issued a final opinion on the legal changes in Russia. The commission stressed that the

“execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights is unequivocal and an imperative legal obligation.”

It would seem that the relationship between the Russians and the Council of Europe is tense in any case, but it can be resolved over time. I am sure that if Russia remained a member of the Council of Europe, matters would have the opportunity to resolve themselves amicably in the years to come. However, although dialogue is important, so are the principles by which the Council of Europe is governed.

There are also the issues that the Parliamentary Assembly has criticised Russia for in the past, including the persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Chechnya; the Smolensk plane crash in 2010, which killed the Polish President; the refusal to send back the wreckage of the plane, which raises more questions than it answers; the politically motivated conviction of Ukrainians; and the condemnation of Jehovah’s Witnesses as an extremist organisation. The Russian Government say that their failure to implement the ECHR’s rulings is because of the fact that without Russian representation they do not have right to select ECHR judges and therefore they should not abide by the Court’s decisions.

The Russian people are the victims—but not the only victims. They are denied human rights protection at the highest level in Europe because their Government have taken the decision to invade another member state, so sanctions are imposed. Still, the Russian Government insist that it is not their fault that the Russian people are denied their human rights—those that any civilised society would want its people to enjoy. For the Russians, it is always someone else’s fault.

The sanctions on Russia should not be lifted. Countries cannot go around invading other member states of the Council of Europe and think they can get away with it. The financial hit on the Council of Europe must be endured, I suppose. This is about principle and we need to seek a way through that does not deny principles. We can consider the human rights issues of the Russian people but we should also consider the rights of the Ukrainians as well. Russia—a country prepared to flout international norms—cannot get away with it.

I do not believe that we can view Russia’s relationship with the Council of Europe in isolation. Russia’s relationship with the Council is disruptive, disconcerting and manipulative, and is part of a pattern that is intended to sow discontent and division on the European continent. That pattern includes the Council of Europe, Crimea, Ukraine, incursions into democratic institutions of other European states—and, indeed, in America—and the use of chemical weapons on the streets of Salisbury. It is part of a strategy to divide and rule—to disregard human rights, international rule-based order and the rule of law.

A populist nationalist Russian leadership believes it can make itself strong only by ensuring Europe is weak, and it will go to any length to secure that objective. Populist movements in Hungary, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, as well as Brexit itself, and President Trump in the White House all play into Putin’s hands. We must take that backdrop into consideration when we think about how we deal with Russia’s relationship with the Council of Europe.