Welfare Ministry puts forward ratification of Istanbul Convention with reference to Constitutional values for approval

RIGA - The Ministry of Welfare has submitted the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the so-called Istanbul Convention, for approval.

According to the draft law submitted by the Ministry, the Convention is to be approved in Latvia with the reservation that in its implementation Latvia will apply "the values, principles and norms enshrined in the Constitution, in particular with regard to the protection of human rights, equality between women and men and the protection and promotion of the rights of marriage, family, parents and children".

It is also proposed that a two-sentence declaration be added to the Convention, emphasizing that "Latvia believes that the Convention aims to protect women from all forms of violence and to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women and domestic violence".

The second sentence of the declaration will repeat what has already been stated in Article 2 of the Law on the Approval of the Convention that Latvia "will apply the Convention within the framework of the values, principles and norms enshrined in the Constitution, in particular with regard to the protection of human rights, equality between women and men and the protection and promotion of the rights of marriage, family, parents and children".

The Constitution's controversial Article 110, which currently reads that "the State shall protect and support marriage - the union between a man and a woman, the family, parental and children's rights", speaks of the family. This version of the Basic Law was once drafted as a result of efforts by some politicians to prevent the legal recognition of same-sex couples in the country.

The Ministry explains that the declaration of the Krisjanis Karins (New Unity, JV) led government aims to implement the requirements of the Istanbul Convention. The Convention requires Member States to develop a coherent policy on violence against women and domestic violence, as well as for state institutions to implement inter-institutional cooperation with non-governmental organizations, civil society and the media.

The Convention also calls for the involvement of all competent public authorities and services in order to address violence against women and domestic violence in a coordinated manner by developing rules to regulate cooperation, the Ministry of Welfare stresses. At the same time, it stresses the need to collect statistical data on cases of violence against women and domestic violence.

The Istanbul Convention was adopted by the Council of Europe in 2011, entered into force in 2014 and was signed by the European Union in June 2017. It is the first international instrument of its kind.

The Istanbul Convention aims to prevent and eliminate violence against women and to prevent and eliminate domestic violence. The Convention establishes a comprehensive and multifaceted legal framework to protect women from all forms of violence and to reduce and eradicate domestic violence.

Although the EU is a signatory, it has so far hesitated to fully ratify the instrument because some Member States have refused to do so.

While most countries have already ratified the Convention at national level and had no objections to ratification at EU level, seven countries - Armenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia - have still not ratified it. Azerbaijan is the only Council of Europe country that has neither signed nor ratified the Convention.

Latvia signed the Convention on May 18. 2016, but has not ratified it for seven years, as there was no majority support in Parliament. Those politicians who oppose the ratification of the Istanbul Convention most often argue that the Convention is about "social gender", which is ideologically unacceptable. This reasoning is also widely used in Russian ideological messages.

Even in the current ruling coalition, which currently consists of New Unity (JV), National Alliance (NA) and United List (AS), only JV is in favor of ratifying the Istanbul Convention, while NA and AS are opposed.

In May 2023, the Saeima rejected a proposal by the Progressives faction at Saeima for the Cabinet of Ministers to immediately put forward the Istanbul Convention to Parliament for ratification. Edvards Smiltens, a politician from AS and the Speaker of the Saeima, was convinced at the time that there was no public support for ratification of the Convention - he had seen this for himself when he visited "almost every corner of Latvia" before the elections. In his view, Latvian law already covers everything and "no convention or directive will serve protect".

In June, the Council of the European Union approved the EU's accession to the Convention on the Prevention of Violence against Women. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU's accession to the Convention sends a strong signal of the bloc's determination to prevent and punish violence against women.

Talks initiated by the JV with political parties to push forward important political issues for the party, including the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, have now started. JV has invited its existing coalition partners AS and NA, as well as the opposition parties the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS) and Progressives, but AS and NA are not coming to the talks because they see them as an attempt to expand the ruling coalition, which both parties do not support.

One of the discussion topics was also devoted to the Istanbul Convention, where JV agreed with the opposition ZZS and Progressives to support the ratification of the Convention, but with specific reservations, "like many other European countries have done".

Welfare Minister Evika Silina (JV) stressed that all three parties were positive about moving forward with the ratification of the Istanbul Convention by adding a declaration to it. As the Convention "does not say anything about 'gender' - only people who want to see it there see it - we would simply explain that we are not in any way violating the principles enshrined in the Constitution," the JV politician said.

ZZS politicians said that they were ready to support the ratification of the Istanbul Convention only with the addition of such a declaration, while the Progressives said that the text of the added declaration has yet to be agreed. The Progressives stated that Latvia should ratify the Istanbul Convention "without reservations", i.e. it was important that no article of the Convention was removed.