26/08/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
After a three-day visit to Libya, Tony Lloyd, (United Kingdom, SOC), the Parliamentary Assembly’s rapporteur, spoke with satisfaction of his high-level meetings with Abdelrahman Shalgam, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nassar Al-Mabruk, Minister of Public Security, and Mohammed Zikree, Deputy Minister of Justice, concerning the fate of the five Bulgarian nurses who have been sentenced to death.
23/08/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) rapporteur Tony Lloyd (United Kingdom, SOC), is due to meet representatives of the Libyan authorities in Tripoli from 22 to 23 August, in order to raise the question of the fate of the five Bulgarian nurses condemned to capital punishment for having caused the death of 46 children and contaminated another 380 through blood transfusions causing an AIDS epidemic at the children’s hospital in Benghazi. The medical staff was arrested without charges by the Libyan police in 1999 and allegedly suffered severe torture during police and secret service interrogation.
27/06/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE's Legal Affairs Committee this week decided to make public a preliminary memorandum and a working paper on "The implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights" by Erik Jurgens (Netherlands, SOC). In his report Mr Jurgens aims to assess the situation in thirteen member states where Court judgments have still not been fully implemented after five years, or raise important issues.
31/05/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany, LDR), PACE rapporteur on the proceedings against former Yukos executives, today reacted to the nine-year prison sentence against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. "The trial against the former leading executives of Yukos, the oil company that is meanwhile almost totally dismantled, was won by the enemies of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary," she said. "The proceedings, which were tainted by numerous shortcomings regarding the rule of law, as well as the sentence meted out by the court constitute a merciless act of revenge against a man who has openly stood up against the policies of Russia’s President Putin. The nine-year sentence pronounced by the court falls just short of the maximum penalty requested by the prosecution. The court’s reasoning replicates almost word by word the submissions of the prosecution. This judgment massively undermines trust in Russia and must not be the last word in these proceedings. It must be a wake-up call for all those who have until now seen Russia wholly uncritically as a 'crystal-clear' democracy”, she said.
24/05/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Enforced disappearances are “serious human rights violations on a par with murder and torture”, PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee was told during a hearing in Cyprus on the subject. Relatives of missing persons from the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, and from the Chechen Republic, testified that not only disappeared persons but also their families and friends were victims. Participants were also told of shortcomings in the international legal framework which allow perpetrators to escape responsibility, and heard first-hand of the lack of investigation into disappearances in the Northern Caucasus, the region of Europe most affected. Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD) is currently preparing a report on the subject for PACE.
23/05/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights meeting in Limassol (Cyprus) on 23 and 24 May had an exchange of views with the Cypriot authorities. Among the participants were Demetris Christofias, President of the House of Representatives, Kypros Chrysostomides, Government Spokesman as well as representatives of the Standing Committee on Legal affairs and Human Rights of the House of Representatives. Tomorrow, the Committee will hold a parliamentary hearing on enforced disappearances. It will hear testimony from the relatives of missing persons from the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, as well as from the Chechen Republic. The hearing will also focus on enforced disappearances in Latin America and in the North Caucasus.
07/04/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Adressing the 26th Conference of European Ministers of Justice in Helsinki, the Chairperson of the PACE’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Serhiy Holovaty (Ukraine, LDR), today sounded the alarm referring to the position taken by the European Commission on behalf of 22 member States of the European Community on the draft Council of Europe Convention on the trafficking in human beings. “The position of the European Commission is seen by many as potentially undermining the Council of Europe´s acquis. Here I refer, in particular, to the so-called “disconnection clauses”, which, if applied, could result in these conventions not being applicable to the European Community’s “constitutional context”. If the Council of Europe does not pay sufficient attention to the question, it may then in the near future permit the EU member states to apply – potentially – lower standards than those negotiated within the Council of Europe. Thereby introducing different standards for different groups of European countries. A line is drawn between EU member states and those not members of the EU”, he warned.
01/04/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
At the end of a fact-finding visit to Ukraine, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany, LDR), rapporteur for the launching of a new enquiry into the murder of the Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze, said she was particularly impressed by the determination of Mr Omelchenko, Chair of the Rada's Committee of Enquiry, Mr Lutsenko, his former deputy and present Minister of the Interior, and Mr Fedur, the lawyer representing the victim's family. Prosecutor General Piskun presented the current state of the investigation and assured her of his willingness to move against all those responsible, regardless of their rank. Whilst the case has dragged on for four years under previous governments, substantial progress has been made, in particular the arrest of three suspects. "But the Gongadze case cannot be considered as solved, before all those responsible – the perpetrators as well as those who ordered and organised the crime – have been brought to justice", said the Rapporteur. This can best be done if all available evidence is used, including that which could be provided by Mr Melnychenko, a former presidential security officer who had secretly taped conversations in President Kouchma's office.
30/03/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany, LDR), rapporteur for the launching of a new enquiry into the murder of the Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), will be in Kyiv from 30 March to 1 April for a fact-finding visit. Ms Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger is expected to meet the President of the Republic, the Interior and Justice Ministers, the State Prosecutor, the ad hoc committee of the Rada and experts who have worked for that committee, as well as the legal counsel of the late Mr Gongadze’s mother. A press conference will be held on 1 April at noon in the Interfax agency’s offices (8/5 a, Reitarska Str, Kyiv).
04/03/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, meeting in Paris on 3 March, adopted the following declaration: “The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights notes with satisfaction that the United States Supreme Court, in its judgement of 1 March 2005 in Roper v. Simmons found the application of the death penalty against persons who were minors at the time of the crime unconstitutional. The Supreme Court held that the execution of minors constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” within the meaning of the 8th Amendment, according to the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” that the Court had already referred to in earlier judgements restricting the application of the death penalty against the mentally handicapped and minors under 16 years of age..."
27/01/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
At the proposal of its Sub-Committee on Human Rights, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly today approved the following declaration: “The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly is dismayed by the recent spate of new, grave human rights violations in the Chechen Republic. It is particularly shocked about the targeting of human rights defenders by acts of repression, in particular the abduction on 20 January 2005 of Makhmut Magomadov, and the raid on the same day by FSB officers of the Nizhny Novogorod office of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society."
11/01/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE's rapporteur on detentions at Guantanamo Bay, Kevin McNamara (United Kingdom, SOC), has welcomed the impending release of the four remaining British detainees, but again called on the United States to return or release all other Council of Europe nationals and residents – of which there could be more than thirty from ten countries. Their detention was "equally unlawful", he said. Mr McNamara is currently preparing a report on the legality of detentions at the US base.