08/12/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee has urged authorities in the Republic of Moldova and in Poland to take a series of steps to uphold the rule of law and ensure judicial independence. Approving a report by Andrea Orlando (Italy, SOC), the committee said it was concerned by “the proximity of part of...
09/11/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
National and international efforts aimed at combating money-laundering and terrorist financing have fallen far short of declared objectives. According to the Legal Affairs Committee, these illegal assets amount to more than USD 2 000 billion annually. In the hands of criminals, they represent a...
02/11/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The General Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the situation of human rights defenders in Council of Europe member States, Alexandra Louis (France, ALDE), made the following statement on the occasion of the third anniversary of the pre-trial detention of...
19/10/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE’s rapporteur on ensuring accountability for the downing of flight MH17 Titus Corlăţean (Romania, SOC) has regretted the withdrawal of Russia from trilateral talks with the Netherlands and Australia concerning the 2014 downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers on...
16/10/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE’s General Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders in Council of Europe member states, Alexandra Louis (France, ALDE), today made the following statement: “Three years after the detention of Jordi Cuixart, human rights defender and President of the Catalan association Omnium...
15/10/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“Another year has passed, the third, and still there is no justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia,” declared Pieter Omtzigt, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly’s (PACE) rapporteur for follow-up to Resolution 2293 (2019) on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination and the rule of law in...
12/10/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Pieter Omtzigt (Netherlands, EPP/CD), the General Rapporteur on the Protection of Whistle-blowers for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), calls for a swift end to the persecution of the British oil-industry whistle-blower Jonathan Taylor, who in 2014 helped expose USD 275...
28/09/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Titus Corlăţean (Romania, SOC), General Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the abolition of the death penalty, has welcomed the decision by the Kazakh authorities to abolish the death penalty entirely by signing the Second Optional Protocol to the...
22/09/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Strasbourg, 22.09.2020 – Rapporteurs from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have welcomed the decision of the Baku Appeals Court to release jailed Azerbaijani opposition politician Tofig Yagublu into house arrest while he awaits a 28 September 2020 hearing in his case...
22/09/2020 | Monitoring
Rapporteurs from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have expressed their concern over the situation of lawyers in Turkey after a series of worrying developments – including last week’s decision of the Turkish Court of Cassation to uphold heavy prison sentences against 14...
14/09/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Even if the most spectacular applications of new neurotechnology – in particular the brain-computer interface (BCI) – remain speculative, the advances already made and the resources being devoted to research imply “an urgent need for anticipation and precautionary regulation now”, ensuring that...
09/09/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Meeting by videoconference today, PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights adopted the following statement on the human rights situation in Belarus: "The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights stands with the courageous people of Belarus who are fighting for their rights and dignity...