III European Union
| Published date | 01 June 1996 |
| DOI | 10.1177/092405199601400207 |
| Author | Johannes Van Der Klaauw |
| Date | 01 June 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Human Rights News
1993, requested that the court documents should remain confidential for longer than ten
years. On 10 December 1993 the Court of Appeal gave judgment, convicting Mr. X, inter
alia, on five counts of attempted manslaughter and increasing the total sentence to more
than eleven years. The judgment, which gave the names of Mrs Z and Mr. X in full and
went into the circumstances of their HIV infection, was published in its entirety. The
Court
of
Appeal did not extend the period of confidentiality fixed by the first-instance
court. Its judgment was widely reported in the press. On 26 September 1994 the Supreme
Court refused Mr. X leave to appeal. The court documents in the case are due to become
public in the year 2002. In her application to the Commission Mrs Z alleged violations
of
her right to respect for her private and family life, in particular in that her doctors had
been compelled to give evidence and her condition as a HIV carrier had been publicly
disclosed. She also claimed that no effective remedy against the alleged violations
of
Article 8 had been available to her. In its report the Commission expressed the unanimous
opinion that Article 8 had been violated and that it was not necessary also to examine
whether there had been a violation of Article 13.
III EUROPEAN UNION
Johannes van der Klaauw
Human Rights and the Inter-Governmental Conference
On 29 March 1996, the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) opened in Turin. This
extraordinary meeting of the European Council (Heads of State and Government) adopted
a declaration outlining the objectives and strategy to follow during this Conference which
is supposed to be concluded in 1997 during the Dutch Presidency. The Presidency
Conclusions refer to the need to bring the Union closer to its citizens, to make the
functioning
of
the institutions more democratic and efficient and to strengthen the Union's
capacity for external action. These were also the main issues commented on in the final
Report
of
the Reflection Group chaired by the (then) Spanish Secretary
of
State for
European Affairs, Mr. Westendorp, and consisting
of
15 individual experts, each
representing individual EU Member States. The Report which was delivered in early
December 1995, covers the most controversial issues, such as the structure
of
the Treaty,
the institutional system (voting system, transparency
of
decision-making, competences
of
the various EU institutions), Community instruments in new policy areas, citizens' rights,
justice and horne affairs as well as the common foreign and security policy. The work
done by the Reflection Group was of a preparatory nature, and its report lists options for
solutions to problems rather than definitive proposals.
The issue
of
human rights and fundamental freedoms has been addressed frequently by
all relevant actors during the preparatory process, not just by the Reflection Group, but
also by the various Community institutions in their contributions to the preparations
of
the
IGC. Commentators agree that Article F(2) of the Treaty does not incorporate fundamental
rights in some sort
of
constitutional law of the Union, but confirms the status conferred
on them by the case law
of
the Court of Justice as unwritten sources
of
Community law.
The IGC, therefore, has been charged with the task to examine the possibilities for a
'constitutionalisation'
of
the protection of human rights in the Union, by adopting a
catalogue or charter
of
these rights, and/or by acceding to the European Convention on
Human Rights (for a negative opinion by the Court
of
Justice on the latter issue see infra).
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