Jean Lambert MEP (London)
Jean Lambert has been London’s Green Party Member of the European Parliament since 1999. She was subsequently re-elected in 2004 and 2009.
Jean is one of eight MEPs representing London and one of two UK Green representatives in the European Parliament.
Within the European Parliament and beyond, Jean is working on a range of equality and diversity matters including human rights, civil liberties, disability, race and LGBT issues.
As an active member of the European Parliament’s cross-party Intergroup on LGBT Gay Rights, Jean is committed to ensuring that the European Parliament does everything in its power to combat discrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and to promote equality.
Despite many countries such as the UK making significant progress in creating equality before the law, homophobia is still rife in many Eastern European countries such as Lithuania, who recently proposed draft legislation to criminalise the ‘public promotion of homosexual relations’.
Jean has stridently called for greater protection of LGBT rights in Eastern Europe, and lobbied the European Parliament to take a tougher stance on Lithuania which resulted in the reinstatement of sexual orientation to the list of equalities protected in the Lithuanian Law on Education.
As Rapporteur (author) of the Qualification Directive, a piece of European legislation which sets out the conditions under which refugee status is granted, Jean successfully secured the inclusion of explicit reference to persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Jean’s amendment to the Directive now forms the basis of European and national law.
Jean has also made countless representations at national, European and international levels on behalf of those who have had their human rights breached as a result of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
