“Human rights issues are particularly sensitive, we have to be careful with them,” emphasized a spokesman for Salzburg’s governor Wilfried Haslauer to the APA. “Asylum principles are clear and there for those who need asylum. But we need a solution for economic migrants who invoke asylum principles – without giving them any prospect of asylum at all.”
Burgenland’s ÖVP leader Christian Sagartz, who is also deputy chairman of the European Parliament’s human rights committee, told APA: “Nobody wants to change human rights arbitrarily. But for me it’s very clear – the more than 70-year-old human rights convention needs an update on the subject of migration and we should start this discussion as soon as possible.” As in other areas of law, the human rights convention must be brought into the new millennium, since there have been no significant adjustments since 1984. “In addition, the old passages were laid out very liberally, which led to long deportation processes and excessive immigration,” said Sagartz.
The state party chairman is also calling for the Geneva Refugee Convention to be revised: “The original text of the Geneva Refugee Convention was designed to help our immediate neighbors in need. But now people are coming to Europe from all over the world and want access to our hard-earned social system. That was possible back then no one can foresee.”
Cautious support for Wöginger’s proposal also came from Carinthia’s ÖVP state party leader Martin Gruber on Tuesday: “We have to do something about asylum being misused as a cover for migration. If this requires a change in the European Convention on Human Rights, I’m in favor of it,” Gruber said when asked by APA. Furthermore, “it must be made clear that asylum procedures should take place outside the EU in order to stop illegal immigration,” said Gruber.
Drexler had previously spoken in the “Kleine Zeitung”. “Yes, he’s right. When it comes to being able to discuss the European Convention on Human Rights,” he said about Wöginger’s proposal and further: “I’m less concerned with the text of the ECHR from 1950. But the ongoing further interpretation by the The Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg can be seen as a judiciary that has become independent. That raises the question of democratic legitimacy.”
One should “knock out what would be covered in a contemporary version of the text,” said Drexler. “It may be necessary to re-codify in order to evaluate what has emerged on the way of interpretation, possibly to include it in the text or to reject it. It is legitimate to have a discussion about it.” Today’s asylum practice is “a real perversion of the original idea of asylum”.
Not negotiable for Edtstadler and Greens
Constitutional Minister Edtstadler and Justice Minister Alma Zadic (Greens) had previously described the European Convention on Human Rights as “non-negotiable”. Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen also entered this debate on Monday: The ECHR is a great human achievement, a compass for humanity and is part of the basic consensus of the republic, he wrote on Twitter. Questioning this does not solve any problems, but rather shakes the foundations on which our democracy rests.
In a broadcast on Tuesday, Catholic Action Austria also called on all political leaders to take action against “hammering at the foundations of the European Convention on Human Rights”.
Source: Nachrichten
