Amendment of Rule 55a of the Assembly's Rules of Procedure (special guest status)
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- See Doc. 6399, report of the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Rapporteur : Sir Geoffrey Finsberg. Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 11 March 1991.
- Thesaurus
1. The Assembly refers to its Resolutions 917 (1989), 920 (1989) and 949 (1990), on special guest status (Rule 55a of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly).
2. It considers that provision should be made for sanctions against the parliament of a state which has seriously infringed the conditions laid down in Rule 55a, paragraph 1.
3. Consequently, the Assembly decides to add two new paragraphs at the end of Rule 55a, to read as follows : ‘‘8. Special guest status may be suspended or withdrawn at any time by the enlarged Bureau at the request of at least fifteen members of the Assembly or of one of the two committees involved in the procedure for the award of such status. If the request comes from one of these two committees, the other will automatically be consulted. On the other hand, in the case where the request comes from fifteen members of the Assembly, then the opinion of the Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries and the Political Affairs Committee should be sought urgently. In both cases, the opinions shall be forwarded to the enlarged Bureau within twenty-one days. The members of the enlarged Bureau shall be informed of any request for suspension or withdrawal at least two weeks before the meeting of the enlarged Bureau at which it is to be considered. The decision of the Bureau, enlarged to include the chairmen of the political groups, shall be taken by a majority of two-thirds of the votes cast. 9. In order to restore special guest status, the procedure provided for in paragraphs 1 to 3 of Rule 55a of the Rules of Procedure shall apply.''
