Thread by @BrianCathcart

Did you know the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe has urged MPs to vote against parts of the Police, Crime Sentencing & Courts Bill and warned it may breach the European Convention on Human Rights? @AdamWagner1 @davidallengreen 1/6
rm.coe.int/letter-to-rt-h…

The letter is dated 1 July but doesn't seem to have had much coverage. The Commissioner's warning should surely carry weight given that the Council of Europe (*not* an EU body) is the continent's leading institutional human rights watchdog. @libertyhq @BBCNews 2/6

Addressing the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament, Commissioner Dunja Mijatović warned that the proposed curbs on protest in the Bill ‘may very well be at variance with Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights’. 3/6

Mijatović says she is ‘seriously concerned’ that the UK may be joining other European governments that have been curbing such rights with the implicit aim of seeking ‘to minimise the possibility of dissent’. 4/6

She also warned that the provisions in the Bill affecting Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities ‘raise serious questions about their compatibility with the UK’s obligations under international human rights standards’. @GypsyTravellerM 5/6

And she urged MPs/peers to remove elements of the Bill that appear discriminatory. They should 'aim to eliminate, rather than exacerbate, the existing disproportionate impact of criminal justice and policing measures on minority groups, including people of African descent.’ 6/6