The chapter deals with rights and freedoms and is the third stage of the currently ongoing constitutional reform. The CCDH has released a critical opinion where it concludes that the original reform text from 2009 has lost much of its depth and quality, likening it to a jigsaw puzzle that has lost some of its pieces.
CCDH president Gilbert Pregno cites the fight against poverty as an example, which completely disappeared from the new text. “Incomprehensible,” he says.
The CCDH’s legal expert Rhéa Ziadé explains: “This was a unique opportunity to propose a new and inclusive text which could offer better human rights protection. But the result is unfortunately that the protection offered by the national constitution is in many places below the level of that offered by European and international conventions.”
The CCDH sees a number of problems for specific human rights, such as equality before the law. Gilbert Pregno:
“What shocked me the most, in fact I am almost ashamed, is that the text says Luxembourgers are equal before the law. This means that the other 300,000 people living in the country, our neighbours, the people we meet every day, who come from abroad but are integrated here, are not even mentioned. I had to wonder: is that nation branding?”
To him, this is an insult to democracy, our culture and our life together. It is not too late to amend this, says the CCDH, and urgently recommends doing so to ensure Luxembourg gets the constitution a modern democracy needs.
