Meeting Report The development of NHRIs is a key benchmark in human rights work. (Morten Kjaerum, FRA director) 1
Objectives of the meeting: Discuss together current and future areas of priority Stimulate linkages between NHRIs and the FRA What are your main expectations from cooperation between the Fundamental Rights Agency and National Human Rights Institutions? How can we have impact together? How to influence EU legislation together? How to channel information received from FRA to national decision makers? Impact of the economic crisis on human rights in general and the work of NHRIs? Information exchange, sharing of good practices and ideas Common capacity building Thematic issues: children s rights, Roma equality, borders, hate speech against people with disabilities Interest from NHRIs in building on FRA fundamental rights indicators. Strengthen the cooperation between the European Group of NHRIs (new secretariat) and FRA. In recent years increased indifference towards human rights work how to combat this threat? Morten Kjaerum, FRA Director: There is an increased understanding of the necessity to cooperate. It is only by the concerted efforts that we can move the big agendas. How do we shape and strengthen that joint human rights agenda for Europe together? Alan Miller, Chair of the European Group of National Human Rights Institutions and Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission: What is our common purpose? We need to have a common position and act in a collective way. We need to share common themes for progress we all want to make. The tremendous research and data collection capacity of the FRA is clear, we should use it. 2
Working groups discussing: NHRIs and FRA reinforced cooperation - increasing proximity and synergies Working Group 1: How to raise impact at the level of EU institutions and legislative procedures? Asylum, Immigration and Border Control Rapporteur: FRA resource persons: Beate Rudolf, German Institute of Human Rights Ann-Charlotte Nygård, Adriano Silvestri and Massimo Toschi Topics identified: monitoring forced return: monitoring mechanism for forced return needed; raise standards under the Return Directive by drawing upon standards developed under OPCAT and CPT Promotion of good standards can be derived from good examples of NHRIs acting as NPMs or national monitoring mechanisms access to justice of irregular migrants: ensure effective access to justice by setting clear legal rules (e.g. right to stay during proceedings), by increasing rights of irregular migrants, especially concerning labour exploitation and by imposing MS obligations to exclude humanitarian assistance from penalization; Need for an overview of the EU agenda on asylum and migration to enhance efficiency of project planning FRA should play a role Focus on access of irregular migrants to healthcare in the context of addressing inequalities in access to health concerns about the impact of austerity measures Importance of research on cost analysis on providing or denying access to healthcare to irregular migrants FRA handbook on migration, asylum and borders in spring 2013 Working Group 2: Improving Roma inclusion: How to improve impact at the national level? Rapporteur: FRA resource persons: Zdenska Čebašek Travnik, Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia Ioannis Dimitrakopoulos and Andreas Accardo Topics identified: Roma are a diverse group needs therefore vary. Importance of sharing practices Importance of working together with Roma both in projects and in (research) project design Need research to identify potential working fields, need FRA-recommendations Enforcing the principle of non-discrimination and rights-based approach is key Where to start inclusion? Pre-school education (kindergartens) is key both for integration and for the later higher education; facilities should be established close to where Roma live On a lot of issues, there is no EU-competence; it is at national and/or local level that things need to be done How to build trust between Roma and state institutions methodology needed Legislation is quite good, but implementation does not always work How to use FRA findings? (different organisations have different mandates) 3
Working Group 3: How to follow-up FRA findings and to use its evidence-based advice in NHRIs` work? Disability Rapporteur: FRA resource persons: Anna Henry, Equality and Human Rights Commission, UK Mario Oetheimer and Martha Stickings Topics identified: How to best use FRA evidence? New information, back up of existing argumentation, comparative arguments How useful are the different formats of research outputs. FRA easy to read formats Need for NHRIs to raise the issue with national governments; use comparative arguments Importance of good practice examples Use of evidence within legal case activity faster channel of communication for case examples needed Working Group 4: Access to efficient and independent justice: Key issues, challenges, opportunities for NHRIs? Cooperation as key to solutions? Rapporteur: FRA resource persons: Maurice Manning, Irish Human Rights Commission Jana Gajdosova and Pia Tirronen Topics identified: FRA should collect best practices, e.g. on strategic litigation and functioning of legal advice centres FRA and NHRIs should identify necessary changes to laws Role for NHRIs at national level to create greater awareness what the EU Fundamental Rights Charter is, and what it is not Knowledge about the impact of economic crisis is most needed, especially with regard to vulnerable and/or marginalised groups The impact of budget cuts on legal aid schemes should be observed as well as the increase of court/litigation fees Litigation and mediation can be an effective and speedy realisation of justice This not only about access to justice, but about effective judicial protection including effective remedies 4
FRA gives an update on its National Rights Institute Handbook NHRIs welcomed the handbook Suggestions made to improve its usability: Print the handbook print publications increase credibility with policy makers Produce tailor-made products for different target groups Much shorter publication needed Stressing the need for A-status bodies handbook should provide pro-arguments Depending on country, language translations could be needed support by the NHRIs possible What will be your immediate concrete follow up action from this meeting in your own work? I will ask myself: What stops us working more closely with the FRA? The Commitment Cloud 5
Commitments by FRA FRA is elaborating on the possibility to produce a tailor-made factsheet (print) of the NHRIs handbook the FRA investigates the possibility of producing the factsheet in several EU languages, ideally with the support of NHRIs Annual regular meeting between chair of NHRIs and FRA management FRA will reflect on inviting the European Group to Legal WGs, CRPD WG and HRE WG FRA expert for legal working group and HRE (plus CRPD already agreed) Bring today s suggestions on access to justice into the planning of the Fundamental Rights Conference Foresee more time for next meeting, consider inviting EC and EP Discuss some broader European fundamental rights trends (economic crisis, trends, ) as input to FRA from Member States what does the collective picture show us? FRA will reflect on how to continue work with NHRIs communicators as started in autumn 2011 FRA will continue raising awareness of what NHRIs are FRA will reflect together with the NHRIs on how to increase impact at EU level Taking up the challenge for need for tailor-made FRA products Together with the Chair of the European Groups, FRA will compile all suggestions and prioritize them Together with the NHRIs, the FRA will argue for excluding provisions of humanitarian assistance from penalization of facilitation of irregular stay under the Facilitation Directive Commitments by NHRIs I will first read the notes from the meeting when I get them and discuss them with my colleagues Raising awareness for the handbook on NHRIs beyond the EU Discuss further ways to collaborate with the FRA Enhance the use of FRA knowledge Stressing the importance of networking amongst the NHRIs and FRA Contribution to more systematic approach to cooperation. I will go on building relationships in this group. Strategic cooperation is needed, to start using each other s experiences. Empower NHRIs in communicating with FRA. Use more strategic approach in cooperation with FRA research work. Inviting those who have an interest in attending FRA disability conference early June. I will liaise with NLO of my country to discuss working group discussions of today. I will invite my national FRA Management Board members to discuss. Have discussions with FRA on how to structure the new Eurogroup secretariat. Use our cooperation to make sure Charter is used in widest possible scope. FRA Handbook European Law on Asylum and Border Control NHRIs with HR Education Departments will reflect how to use the handbook in their training of law enforcement officials, judges and lawyers NHRI will feed national case work regarding disabilities and irregular migrants to the FRA 6
Open-Question-Square Is the participation of the NHRIs in the FRP an added value? How to increase awareness of what NHRIs are? Does FRA communications reach your staff? Is FRA responding to your needs? How do we get from findings to real changes? Is Roma inclusion a priority for the NHRIs? Are NHRIs involved in drafting the national integration strategy on Roma integration? Your evaluation of the meeting There is no doubt that the warmth we experienced here is an absolute vital part of our cooperation Alan Miller We asked your feedback about the Cooperation and Coordination Meeting between the FRA and NRHIs. You responded. We listened. Here are the main findings based on the 18 responses we received. High appreciation for the overall quality of the meeting: 10 respondents (59%) assessed it as excellent, 6 (35%) as good and 1 (6%) as satisfactory. All respondents replied with yes to the question: Would you find it useful if the FRA organises a similar meeting in the future? The respondents were asked if they liked the brainstorming type of working group discussions. 14 respondents (78%) answered yes, very much, 3 (17%) yes and 1 (6%) average. 6 respondents (33%) assessed the usefulness of the workshops as excellent, 9 (50%) as good and 3 (17%) as average. However, the usefulness of the different workshops has been rated differently by the participants. The lowest appreciation found Workshop 3 Disability (4 respondents or 36% assessed the workshop as excellent or good, 3 respondents or 27% as satisfactory ; 4 respondents answered n/a ) the highest Workshop 4 Access to Justice (9 respondents or 60% assessed the workshop as excellent or good, 3 respondents or 20% as satisfactory ; 3 respondents answered n/a ) Concerning the outcome of the meeting, the assessment has been mainly positive. The highest appreciation scored the possibility to meet each other and exchange practices and the possibility to come to know more about FRA`s current activities (both with 61% excellent, 33% good, 6% satisfactory ), followed by the opportunity to explore potential cooperation with the FRA (44% excellent and 56% good ). The chance to plan future work relations with the FRA (39% excellent2, 50% good and 11% satisfactory ) and ways to influence the way the FRA conducts its work (22% excellent, 61% good and 17% satisfactory ) were largely assessed positively. 7
The organisational aspects of the meeting were assessed as mainly positive. The highest rankings were for the meeting facilities (83% assessed it as excellent, 17% as good ), the catering (78% excellent, 22% good ) and the assistance by the FRA before the meeting (72% excellent, 28% good ). The lowest ranking scored the dinner (67% excellent, 11% each good and satisfactory, 6% each poor and N/A ) We at the FRA have many dreams. The FRA-dream-box But at least one is easily feasible: that the NHRIs might inform us whenever they make references to our work. It would indeed improve our work by assessing our impact. 8