Doc. 11302 Report B. Draft recommendation 1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers to its Resolution … (2007) on secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states. It also recalls its Recommendation 1754 (2006) on alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states, noting with regret that the Committee of Ministers has not as yet acted positively either on its own proposals or on those of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe submitted in June 2006, which the Assembly fully endorses.2 2. The Assembly condemns the deafening silence of the Committee of Ministers as regards the third public statement of the Council of Europe Anti-Torture Committee concerning the existence of secret detention facilities in the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation, made on 13 March 2007. It urges the Committee of Ministers to play its full role as the decision-making body of the Council of Europe, the organisation which is guardian of human rights in Europe. 3. Given that the concepts of state secrecy or national security are invoked by many governments to obstruct judicial or parliamentary proceedings aimed at ascertaining the responsibilities of the government authorities in relation to grave allegations of human rights violations and at rehabilitating and compensating the presumed victims of such violations, the Assembly invites the Committees of Ministers to prepare a recommendation on the matter, in order to: 3.1. ensure that information and evidence concerning the civil, criminal or political liability of the state’s representatives for grave human rights violations committed are excluded from protection as state secrets; 3.2. introduce appropriate procedures ensuring that the culprits are accountable for their actions while preserving lawful state secrecy and national security, when secrets unworthy of protection are inextricably linked with lawful state secrets. 4. The Committee of Ministers should be guided in particular by the Canadian procedures followed in the case of Maher Arar and by national parliamentary inquiry procedures such as the rules of the German Bundestag commissions of inquiry providing for the possibility of the commission’s appointing a special investigator. 5. The Committee of Ministers is invited to inform the Assembly, before the end of 2007, of the progress of its work on the implementation of the Secretary General’s proposals, and of the Assembly’s Recommendation 1754 (2006). 2. Follow-up to the Secretary General’s reports drawn up under Article 52 ECHR on the question of secret detention and transport of detainees suspected of terrorist acts, notably by or at the instigation of foreign agencies (SG/Inf(2006)5 and SG/Inf(2006)13), Document SG(2006)01. 5