1. Background

2. Previous work

3. Member of the European Parliament, 1999-present

4. Recognition

5. References

6. External links

Claude Ajit Moraes (born 22 October 1965) is a British Labour Party politician, who has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for London since 1999.^[1] He is Chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee and former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in the European Parliament.

Background

Claude Moraes is of Indian descent. He was born in Aden (State of Aden), and grew up in Scotland, having moved to Dundee with his parents at the age of three from India. His parents are Indian Catholics from Karnataka (Mangalore) and Mumbai respectively. He attended the comprehensive St Modan's High School, and studied law at the University of Dundee, government at Birkbeck, University of London and international law at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Previous work

After leaving Scotland Moraes settled in East London, living and volunteering at Toynbee Hall, an anti-poverty charity, where he was later a Council Member.

He was appointed House of Commons researcher to MPs John Reid and Paul Boateng following the 1987 General Election and became a national officer at the Trades Union Congress in 1989. During this period was also a representative to the European Trade Union Confederation.

Prior to becoming an MEP he attracted attention^[2] as director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, a UK-based independent legal NGO founded in 1967 specialising in refugee and migration issues. At JCWI he helped organise key legal challenges in the UK and European Courts, succeeding Dame Anne Owers as director in 1992. At this time he was also executive secretary to the Immigrants' Aid Trust. Moraes was appointed a Commissioner at the Commission for Racial Equality for the period 1997-2002 while at JCWI. He was also an elected Council member of Liberty during this period.

He has written regularly on migration and human rights issues for publications including The Political Quarterly^[3] and academic books^[4].

He contested the parliamentary constituency of Harrow West in the 1992 General Election, placing second with 22.5% of the vote.

Member of the European Parliament, 1999-present

He was first elected to the European Parliament in the 1999 European elections, one of the first Asian origin MEPs elected to the European Parliament and London's first ethnic minority MEP. He was re-elected to the European Parliament at number one on the Labour Party list in 2004. In 2009, he was number one on the London list of Labour candidates in the European Parliamentary elections, being re-elected to the European Parliament for the third time. He led the London list going into the 2014 European elections and was elected for a fourth term.

Moraes was the elected Spokesperson for the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs from 2009 to 2014. His Parliamentary reports include the legislative Reports on the Protection of Seasonal Workers in the EU (2014) and Blue Card (Migration) Directive (Revision) (2017).

In 2013 Moraes was appointed Rapporteur for the Parliament Inquiry into Mass Surveillance following the leaks from Edward Snowden.^[5]. The Inquiry and his Report "US NSA surveillance programmes, surveillance bodies in various Member States and their impact on EU citizens' fundamental rights and on transatlantic cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs" was approved with a large majority by the EP in March 2014 and is sometimes referred to as the Parliament's "European Digital Bill of Rights" as it looks at the future of key data, human rights and commercial priorities for the EU in the area of data protection, surveillance, governance of the internet, cybercrime, media freedom, scrutiny, anti-terrorism and technology.^[6].

In July 2014 Moraes was elected Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE Committee)^[1].

In 2018 as part of his committee's increasing role in the external & humanitarian aspects of the refugee crisis, he led delegations to Libya and Niger to develop the European Parliament's response.

Also in 2018 he was appointed Standing Rapporteur for the European Parliament consent procedure relating to the European Commission's decision to directly invoke Article 7 of the EU Treaties for the first time into alleged rule of law breaches by the Polish government. He led all-party European Parliament rule of law delegations that year to both Poland and Slovakia ^{[7] [8]}.

Recognition

In 2011 Moraes was Dod's and the European Parliament Magazines 'MEP of the Year'^[9] for his work on Justice and Civil Liberties. In 2016 he was named as one of Politico Magazine's "40 MEPs Who Actually Matter".^[10] In 2017 the organisation Vote Watch Europe listed him as "the most influential" UK MEP and sixth most influential MEP in the European Parliament.^[11]

References

External links

• Kenneth Carder
• Kenneth Carey
• Kenneth Carlisle
• Kenneth Carr
• Kenneth Carroll
• Kenneth Carroll Guinn
• Kenneth Carson
• Kenneth Casey
• Kenneth C. Catania
• Kenneth Cecil Bunch
• Kenneth C. Flint
• Kenneth C Freeman
• Kenneth C. Griffin
• Kenneth C. Guinn
• Kenneth Champagne
• Kenneth Chan Kai Tai
• Kenneth Chase
• Kenneth Chenalt
• Kenneth Cheruiyot
• Kenneth Cheuvront
• Kenneth Chisholm
• Kenneth C. Hulshof
• Kenneth C. "Jethro" Burns
• Kenneth C. "Kenny" Hulshof
• Kenneth Clark (psychologist)