Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-12-12-Speech-1-063"
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"en.20051212.13.1-063"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by Mrs Wallis on Mr Gollnisch’s request for defence of immunity is, both in its form and its content, truly scandalous. It is scandalous because the legal rules and the settled case-law of our Rules of Procedure and of the Committee on Legal Affairs have never before been so warped and violated. It is scandalous because the matter presented before the Committee on Legal Affairs was the subject of unprecedented politicisation and political pressure on the part of Mr Gollnisch’s political opponents. It has taken no less than four draft reports, all differing each time in their conclusions and reasoning, to come up with the report presented before us today in plenary, which is not, I might add, the report of which the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs had voted in favour, as the reasons behind the decision proposed by Mrs Wallis have subsequently been amended.
The argument put forward by the report in support of the decision not to defend Mr Gollnisch’s immunity and privileges is that he was not using his freedom of expression in carrying out his duties when he spoke at the press conference held in his political premises in Lyon on 11 October 2004. What hypocrisy and what lies! The written invitation to Mr Gollnisch’s press conference mentioned, next to his name, his status as a Member of the European Parliament. The majority of the press reports referred to his status as a Member of the European Parliament. Moreover, the subjects successively addressed by Mr Gollnisch were connected with Europe, whether they were the issue of Turkey’s joining Europe, the ratification process of the European Constitutional Treaty or, furthermore, the so-called Rousso report mainly related to certain academics’ political opinions on the history of the Second World War in Europe.
The settled case-law of the Committee on Legal Affairs in relation to opinions voiced by Members of the European Parliament tends, in this case, towards the systematic protection of immunity. Far more serious precedents involving prosecutions for libel, slander, uprisings against the police or even contempt of court have resulted in the immunity of a Member of the European Parliament being upheld. Yet, this has not been the case for our colleague Mr Gollnisch, thus undermining the independence and the freedom of expression of all Members. Make no mistake: if this report were to be adopted in plenary, the freedom of expression of all Members of the European Parliament would be restricted and subject to the discretion of others; a new interpretation of the waiver of immunity for opinions voiced by Members in the course of their duties would be adopted; and Europe’s oh so precious democracy and fundamental values would lose their hauteur."@en1
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