Caption: AdoptedRejectedWithdrawnNo electronic votes
21 January 2013
Tabled by Mr Michael MCNAMARA, Lord John E. TOMLINSON, Mr Jean-Pierre MICHEL, Mr Stefan SCHENNACH, Mr Björn von SYDOW
Votes: 97 in favor 91 against 29 abstentions
In the draft resolution, after paragraph 3, insert the following paragraph:
"It regrets that the Azerbaijani authorities prevented the Rapporteur from carrying out a fact-finding visit to Azerbaidjan, which had been duly authorised by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights."
Explanatory note
- to bring back a paragraph lost in the voting paragraph by paragraph in the committee meeting in June; - the Assembly would undermine its own credibility, if it would not "regret" that its Rapporteur was prevented by the Azerbaijani authorities to carry out his duly authorised fact-finding visit.
21 January 2013
Tabled by Mr Michael MCNAMARA, Lord John E. TOMLINSON, Mr Jean-Pierre MICHEL, Mr Stefan SCHENNACH, Mr Björn von SYDOW
Votes: 91 in favor 109 against 22 abstentions
In the draft resolution, after paragraph 4, insert the following paragraph:
"Whilst the vast majority or the persons on the original list of 716 alleged political prisoners assessed by the Independent Experts is no longer in prison, several cases are still not resolved, including three in which the Independent Experts' conclusion was that they were indeed political prisoners."
Explanatory note
- to bring back a paragraph lost in the voting paragraph by paragraph in the committee meeting of June; - this sentence merely recalls undisputable facts, as part of the recapitulation of the Council of Europe's and the Assembly previous work on the issue this report is intended to "follow-up".
21 January 2013
Tabled by Mr Michael MCNAMARA, Lord John E. TOMLINSON, Mr Jean-Pierre MICHEL, Mr Stefan SCHENNACH, Mr Björn von SYDOW
Votes: 84 in favor 113 against 23 abstentions
In the draft resolution, after paragraph 6, insert the following paragraph:
"In yet another group of cases, persons are still in prison, who were convicted as lowly accessories in illegal acts whose organisers and leaders have long been set free after they had been recognised as political prisoners by the Independent Experts. Some of these cases had inadvertently not been brought to the attention of the Independent Experts; others were arrested only after the completion of the Experts' work."
Explanatory note
- to bring back a paragraph lost in the voting paragraph by paragraph in the committee meeting of June; - this sentence merely recalls undisputable facts, as part of the recapitulation of the Council of Europe's and the Assembly previous work on the issue this report is intended to "follow-up".
21 January 2013
Tabled by Mr Michael MCNAMARA, Lord John E. TOMLINSON, Mr Jean-Pierre MICHEL, Mr Stefan SCHENNACH, Mr Björn von SYDOW
Votes: 86 in favor 111 against 22 abstentions
In the draft resolution, after paragraph 10, insert the following paragraph:
"It notes that the Rapporteur has carefully studied well over one hundred cases included on a consolidated list of presumed political prisoners prepared in cooperation with a number of Azerbaijani and international non-governmental organisations, lawyers and prisoners' family members."
Explanatory note
- to bring back a paragraph lost in the voting paragraph by paragraph in the committee meeting of June; - this sentence also merely means that the Assembly takes note of certain facts, i.e. of the Rapporteur's working method through which he established the factual basis of his report.
21 January 2013
Tabled by Mr Michael MCNAMARA, Lord John E. TOMLINSON, Mr Jean-Pierre MICHEL, Mr Stefan SCHENNACH, Mr Björn von SYDOW
Votes: 80 in favor 121 against 20 abstentions
In the draft resolution, after paragraph 10, insert the following paragraph:
"The Assembly notes that, in a large number of these cases, the Azerbaijani courts have clearly violated fundamental fair trial rules. These transgressions include failures to react to alleged ill-treatment of accused persons during pre-trial detention, to hear witnesses called by the defence, to respect the presumption of innocence, as well as discriminatory, excessively harsh, treatment of accused persons linked to opposition groups."
Explanatory note
- to bring back a paragraph lost in the voting paragraph by paragraph in the committee meeting of June; - this paragraph includes a general summary (not referring to individual cases) of the main types of violations against the rule of law in the cases analysed by the Rapporteur. These are systemic problems often pinpointed by the ECHR.