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...
09/09/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee is calling for national legal frameworks to regulate the use of Artificial Intelligence in police and criminal justice work, based on core principles of transparency, fairness, safety, privacy, and the clear attribution of human responsibility for all decisions in...
09/09/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“The criminal law, civil law and human rights implications of the development and introduction of autonomous vehicles must be regulated in accordance with Council of Europe standards,” said the Legal Affairs Committee, meeting by videoconference. The report by Ziya Altunyaldiz (Turkey, NR...
09/09/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Committee on Legal Affairs expressed its concern by the numerous cases of violations of lawyers’ rights, including attacks on their safety and independence, in recent years. Lawyers continue to be targeted for their involvement in human rights-related cases, or for their work denouncing...