20/12/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Jamal al-Harith, a British muslim who spent two years detained without charge at Guantanamo Bay, told a PACE hearing on Friday how he was subjected to "systematic abuse" which he was informed amounts to torture under international law. Addressing PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee in Paris, Mr al-Harith told parliamentarians how he was assaulted, "short shackled", subjected to extremes of heat and cold and hosed down as well as being denied access to necessary medical care and harassed in practising his religion. Mr al-Harith says he has never engaged in any kind of terrorist behaviour.
14/12/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Legal Affairs Committee, meeting in Paris on 16 December, adopted a draft resolution and a draft recommendation on "The protection of human rights in Kosovo" (rapporteur: Tony Lloyd, United Kingdom, SOC). The parliamentarians proposed a series of measures to improve the state of legal certainty and to reinforce the judicial system. They called on UNMIK and KFOR/NATO to commence work, in co-operation with the Council of Europe, on establishing a Human Rights Court for Kosovo.
17/11/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The circumstances surrounding the arrest and prosecution of leading Yukos executives strongly suggest that they were “arbitrarily singled out” by the Russian authorities, according to PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee. The state's action went beyond the mere pursuit of justice to include such elements as “to weaken an outspoken political opponent, intimidate other wealthy individuals and regain control of strategic economic assets”, said the committee, adopting a report by Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany, LDR) today in Paris. The report is due for plenary debate by the Assembly in 2005, possibly at its January session.
28/09/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany, LDR), who is preparing a report for the Assembly on “the circumstances surrounding the arrest and prosecution of leading Yukos executives”, yesterday attended a Moscow court hearing of jailed executives Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Alexei Pichugin. During her two-day visit, Mrs Leutheusser – a former German Justice Minister – also intends to meet prosecutors, Yukos executives, lawyers involved in the case and human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin. Her draft report is due to be made public possibly in mid-November.
16/09/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
"The human rights situation in the Chechen Republic remains catastrophic," Rudolf Bindig (Germany, SOC) concludes in his report, due to be debated at the Assembly’s October session (4-8 October, Strasbourg). Supporting Mr Bindig’s report at its meeting today in Paris, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) unequivocally condemned recent terrorist attacks and killings by illegal armed formations.
16/09/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Assembly's Legal Affairs Committee, meeting in Paris, has said it is outraged at today’s arrest of Tatiana Reviaka and Garry Pogoniaïlo in Belarus. According to a report by AFP, the two human rights activists were arrested today in Minsk while distributing copies of a PACE report by Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD) which accuses several high representatives of the Lukashenko regime of being responsible for the murder of opposition figures.
05/07/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have decided to join forces and adopted a common declaration of concern, made public today, on the case of Victor Gonchar, a prominent opposition politician who disappeared in Belarus.
01/07/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who is preparing a report for the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights on "the circumstances surrounding the arrest and prosecution of leading Yukos executives", said she was "outraged" by a selective and thereby misleading Interfax report today on a confidential memorandum she presented to the committee last week. "I said in this document that I have not yet completed my evaluation, which is why the statement reported by Interfax that the Council of Europe sees no political colouring in the case is clearly false," said Mrs Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a former German Justice Minister.
25/06/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Sub-committee on Human Rights of the Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights meets in Barcelona (2-3 July) on the occasion of the Universal Forum of Cultures to take part in the 1st Round Table of European Regional Ombudsmen, co-organised by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe, with the co-operation of the Mayor of Barcelona. Themes of the round table include the tasks and competences of regional ombudsmen as well as their opinions on the right to housing and to a healthy environment.
24/06/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Assembly today called on the Italian government to repeal the ‘Cirami law’ on legitimate suspicion. In 2002, the Cirami law introduced into the Code of Criminal Procedure the notion of legitimate suspicion as a ground for requesting the transfer of a case from one court to another. The Assembly believes that the law unduly slows down the course of justice in certain cases, undermines trust in judges as a whole and is inimical to the principle of equality before the law. Following the proposals by the rapporteur (Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Germany, LDR), the parliamentarians invited the italian authorities to enact legislation consistent with the principles of independence of the judiciary.
08/06/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
On 8 June the Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights held a parliamentary hearing in Berlin on the concept of “nation” in the framework of a report on the subject being prepared by György Frunda (Romania, EPP/CD). The day before, the committee is due to hold an exchange of views with German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries in the framework of a report on cross-border crime in Europe.
28/05/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
"Human rights apply to rich as well as poor – everyone is equal before the law," said Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany, LDR), speaking at the end of a three-day fact-finding visit to Moscow to investigate the circumstances surrounding the arrest and prosecution of Yukos executives. "Everyone is entitled to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, or acquitted in a fair trial," she added. Though unable to meet any of the three detained executives in prison, she met prosecution and defence lawyers, Justice Ministry officials and human rights activists. Her report is due before the autumn.