On the last day of his official visit to Ukraine (20-22 September), PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu was awarded the Honoris Causa by the President of the Odessa National Academy of Law, Serhii Kivalov, who is also Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee of the Verkhovna Rada and a member of the Ukrainian PACE delegation.
Speaking to the Academy’s students, professors and researchers, Mr Çavusoglu stressed the importance of the accession of the EU to the European Convention on Human Rights. “The Pan-European system for the protection of fundamental rights will be enhanced by the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into its primary law. The EU will be placed on the same footing as its member states with regard to the system of fundamental rights protection supervised by the European Court of Human Rights,” he said.
He added that the European Court was undergoing a reform process to ensure its viability and effectiveness in the future. “At present, it cannot cope with the increasing number of requests,” he pointed out. In this context, the President announced that under the forthcoming Turkish Chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, a follow-up conference to the so-called Interlaken Process (named after the Swiss town where the first reform steps were taken at a conference organised by the Swiss Chairmanship) would be held in April 2011 in Izmir.
Later today, the President will meet with theChairman of the Odessa Regional State Administration, Eduard L. Matviychuk, the Chairman of the Odessa Regional Council, Nikiloy Skorikov and the Mayor of Odessa, Eduard I. Gurvits.
