Strasbourg, 29/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - “Whistle-blowers deserve protection”: that call, from Pieter Omtzigt (EPP, Centre-Right) of the Netherlands, opening the presentation of his report before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), set the tone of his text that was debated in chamber last week.
If FIFA had investigated the revelations of its own whistle-blowers, “they would have done FIFA and all football playing and football lovers a great favour”, he added. He drew attention to “the Greek statisticians who, putting forward the real figures on the level of Greek debt, were threatened with court proceedings for treason after looking to the International Monetary Fund” (IMF). “Far from being rewarded, these people are put under threat”, he stated, recalling the case of Edward Snowden, former CIA and NSA IT specialist who now finds himself “stuck” in Moscow.
PACE followed his lead. It adopted a resolution (by 88 votes to 7, with 10 abstentions) addressed, on the one hand, to the Council of Europe (CoE), calling on it to negotiate “a binding legal instrument in the form of a framework convention that would be open to nonmember States” and, on the other, the United States itself, with regard to the Snowden case.
The call could not be clearer: it asks the US government to allow Snowden to “return without fear of criminal prosecution under conditions that would not allow him to raise the public interest defence”. As things stand, the 1927 US law dating on spying under which he stands accused does not allow him to raise the merest form of general interest and thus justify his actions.
Speaking from Moscow by video link at a meeting organised on the sidelines of the session, Snowden welcomed the vote. “This position will help whistle-blowers around the world”, he said, “because, if we cannot defend ourselves by arguing that we are revealing information that is in the public interest, we cannot have a fair trial”.
The issue is related to matters of national security, and this did not escape the notice of the PACE members who, extending their comments beyond the Snowden case, added that laws on whistle-blowers should also cover “employees of national security or intelligence services and of private firms working in this field”.
Going further, they also called on Council of Europe member and observer states and the European Union to “grant asylum, as far as possible under national law, to whistle-blowers threatened with retaliation in their home countries, provided their revelations qualify for protection under the principles advocated by the Assembly”. The discreet call to take Snowden in is clear but is likely to go unheeded. For the moment at any rate, Snowden has requested that his residence permit, which expires in August, be renewed allowing him to continue to stay in Russia.
The recommendation adopted by PACE complements the resolution drafted by the legal affairs committee, calling on the committee of ministers (one representative for each of the 47 CoE member states) to launch “the process of negotiating a binding legal instrument in the form of a framework convention that would be open to nonmember States and cover disclosures of wrongdoings by persons employed in the field of national security and intelligence”.
This latest PACE vote follows on from resolutions and recommendations on behalf of whistle-blowers dating back to 2010. It is also grounded in two texts adopted in 2013 to highlight the importance of enhancing the balance between the right of citizens to be informed and the protection of legitimate national security concerns. These texts were based on the Tshwane Principles, which stemmed from a world-wide consultation exercise lasting more than two years, carried out by Open Society Justice Initiative, involving governments, former security chiefs, civil society groups and academics.
European Court of Human Rights case-law also is helpful to whistle-blowers. The CoE itself has put in place internal guidelines on staff who blow the whistle on impropriety, incorporating some of the principles set out by PACE and the Committee of Ministers. “Some, but not all”, notes the Omtzigt report, without further comment. (Véronique Leblanc)