21 February 2023
EU-wide annual rule of law report by 45 civil liberties groups finds weakening democracy in the EU in 2022
A new European report has found that rule of law in Ireland has regressed in a number of areas, including systemic human rights issues.
The annual ‘Liberties Rule Of Law Report 2023’ assesses the state of justice, corruption, media freedom, checks and balances, civic space and systemic human rights issues in 2022, as compiled by 45 human rights organisations in 18 countries across the EU.
In the case of Ireland, the report recommends that the Government engage with survivors of Mother and Baby Homes and victims of abuse in day-schools to ensure that compensation schemes and schemes designed to address their needs are compliant with human rights standards.
In the area of public ethics, the report acknowledges “some piecemeal progress in areas such as lobbying regulation”, but points out that a long-promised comprehensive review of ethics legislation has yet to materialise and that progress has been far too slow despite the urgent need for reform.
It also draws attention to the continued rushing of legislation at the end of parliamentary terms, which it says “has resulted in extremely problematic behaviour”.
Overall, the report finds that, comparing year-on-year the Irish Government has made progress on two issues (justice system; media environment and freedom of expression and of information), no progress on one (anti-corruption framework) and has regressed on three (checks and balances; enabling framework for civil society; systemic human rights issues).
Liam Herrick, Executive Director of ICCL expressed alarm about a number of the issues that were raised in the submission:
“We’ve been tracking the ongoing issues with respect to the scrutiny of legislation for a number of Dáil terms now and it is worrying to see that a number of our partner organisations have raised the same concerns with respect to the passage of bills.
"We’ve also been consistently highlighting the urgent need for new ethics legislation and the ban on foreign funding for civil society advocacy work which is highly unusual in Europe. The government need to take action to stop the backsliding we are seeing elsewhere in Europe”.
Internationally, the report found that most EU countries made little effort to resolve documented rule of law issues, allowed existing shortcomings to go unaddressed, or even made things worse in all areas assessed.
Balazs Denes, Executive Director of the Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties), said:
“European governments should realise that by failing to nurture their democracies, they pave the way for extremist politicians who will not hesitate to tear down the whole system. Despite Brussels having allowed itself to be blackmailed into taking half measures, we want to see the EU make full use of the conditionality mechanism for both the Polish and Hungarian regimes. When funds are suspended, it must be at a level that gives Orban and Kaczynski no choice but to return democracy to their citizens, because Poland and Hungary need the EU to cope with the fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine.”
Key findings from across the EU
- ‘OUTLIERS’: HUNGARY and POLAND remain the worst offenders on the rule of law. Although the EU has triggered its newly created conditionality mechanism to withhold funds from Hungary, this has yet to produce genuine improvements on the ground. And similarly, the reforms being negotiated with Poland in exchange for release of EU COVID Recovery funds would lead to only modest improvements that don’t free judges from political control. These governments continue to implement a series of measures designed to centralise power, silence their opponents, control public opinion, and make it very difficult to lose future elections.
- ‘FAST LEARNERS’: ITALY, SWEDEN. Early signs from the new governments formed in Italy and Sweden in 2022 point to the risk that, if checks and balances do not stay strong, ruling coalitions may turn towards authoritarianism. For example, we have already seen a sharp increase in rhetorical attacks against NGOs and the media by both of these new governments. However, these countries have strong independent institutions, which, in the short-term, prevent a turn to authoritarianism on the scale of Hungary and Poland.
- RECOVERING SLOVENIA. In contrast, developments in Slovenia since the replacement of the far-right government show that countries can rehabilitate their democracies. For example, the Report records efforts to restore independence to institutions like the public broadcaster and to revoke and reimburse fines that were illegally issued under the previous far-right government to citizens for attending protests.
- MIXED RESULTS: THE EU. While the situation across the member states continues in the wrong direction, the EU has had mixed success in exerting a positive influence. Against the background of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the EU has decided to take firmer action against Hungary (which isolated itself politically by supporting Russia) than Poland (which has gone to lengths to support Ukraine), though even then, the Council weakened the Commission’s proposal under the conditionality mechanism in exchange for Hungary lifting its veto on aid to Ukraine. At the same time, the EU’s own reaction to emerging threats to democracy have raised concern. For example, the EU’s ban on Russia Today and Sputnik as a way of combating Russian state-sponsored disinformation raised serious concerns for setting a dangerous precedent. And the shocking revelations of the Qatargate corruption scandal rocking the European Parliament are likely to have damaged the credibility and moral standing of the EU, which will need to win public support for protecting the rule of law, especially when this involves measures that authoritarians can spin to their advantage, such as cuts in EU funds.
For media queries: ruth.mccourt@iccl.ie / 087 415 7162