While the competence and legitimacy of the European Court of Human Rights is disputed, including by some of its founding members, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe on the contrary considers it necessary to affirm this institution through membership of the EU to the European Convention on human Rights. This evolution, explicitly provided by the Lisbon Treaty would give more legal weapons to the European Commission to act in cases of fundamental rights violations, as those recurrent in the sad case of Hungary.

Speaking today during a Strasbourg plenary session debate on this crucial issue the European Parliament, Andrew Duff (LibDem, UK), ALDE coordinator for the Constitutional Affairs Parliamentary Committee said: : "EU accession to the ECHR was the quid pro quo for the decision to make the Charter of Fundamental Rights binding. This is the deal which all EU states must now honour -- not least the UK which was once the pioneer and advocate of human rights but which now seems to be suffering from acute withdrawal symptoms".

"Parliament will insist that the Commission is allowed to fulfil its treaty-based function of representing the Union in civil liberties matters in the relevant organs of the Council of Europe. EU internal rules must respect the letter and logic of the Treaty of Lisbon. If any country, however self-important, undermines the cohesion of the EU in this matter, the effort to create a world-class universal standard of rights protection across Europe will be at risk."