17/09/2013 Monitoring
Strasbourg, 17.09.2013 – “We take note of the discussions in the parliament about amendments to the Constitution. We call upon the parliament to take into account any comments by the Venice Commission when discussing these amendments,” said the two co-rapporteurs for Georgia of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Michael Aastrup Jensen (Denmark, ALDE) and Boriss Cilevics (Latvia, SOC).
With regard to the amendments to the procedure for future revisions of the Constitution, they emphasised that a proper balance should be found between the required flexibility for constitutional reform as well as constitutional stability. “We would therefore recommend that the parliament considers reaching a consensus on a reasonable compromise such as a system of two votes by a two-thirds majority, with a three-month interval, which is generally seen as an acceptable middle ground between flexibility and constitutional stability,” said the co-rapporteurs.