02/08/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Marina Schuster has called on the State of Florida to stay the execution of John Errol Ferguson and to review his case. “Executing people suffering from mental illness constitutes cruel and unusual punishment".
31/07/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
"The Council of Europe stands firmly in its opposition to the use of capital punishment under all circumstances. We therefore urge the State of Ohio to commute the sentence of Billy Slagle to life without parole,” Marina Schuster said.
31/07/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“I am alarmed by the prospect of the imminent execution of Douglas Feldman, convicted for murder in 1999,” the rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty said. Feldman will be the 11th prisoner executed this year in Texas.
25/07/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty, has called on the authorities in Alabama not to execute Andrew Reid Lackey. Mr Lackey, who was convicted of a 2005 murder, is due to be executed today, having waived all further appeals.
19/07/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE Rapporteur on the Execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, Klaas de Vries (Netherlands, SOC), today comment on a bill currently debated in the Bulgarian Parliament providing, inter alia, for the possibility to terminate criminal investigations if they lasted more than two years.
18/07/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Marina Schuster (Germany, ALDE), the Assembly’s General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty, today made the following statement in view of the imminent executions of Vaughn Ross and Warren Hill in the United States of America: “It is clear that the world is becoming an increasingly lonely place for states that still practice executions..."
17/07/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Marina Schuster (Germany, ALDE), the Parliamentary Assembly’s General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty, regrets the execution, on 16 July 2013 in Texas, of John Manuel Quintanilla, who had married a German national whilst on death row. She called on Texas to immediately suspend the use of the death penalty, as a first step toward full abolition.
11/07/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC), PACE Rapporteur on “Refusing impunity for the killers of Sergei Magnitsky”, has expressed disappointment at the guilty verdicts pronounced by a Moscow court today. “Having studied the background of the death of Sergei Magnitsky intensively over the past eight months, I must say that I am very disappointed, though not really surprised by these judgments: they appear to be a continuation of the official cover-up I described in my draft report published in June."
25/06/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, following a general discussion today in Strasbourg, decided to declassify the draft report “Refusing impunity for the killers of Sergei Magnitsky” by Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC) and issued an invitation for any interested parties – including the Russian authorities – to comment on it with a view to approving the report at its meeting on 4 September 2013.
25/06/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Mailis Reps (Estonia, ALDE), rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the strengthening the protection and role of human rights defenders, has expressed serious concern at Russia’s “Foreign Agents” legislation. “I am worried about the hostile climate in which human rights defenders have been working in Russia since the adoption of the Law on “Foreign Agents”.
24/06/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
"Whistleblowers" who disclose state wrongdoing in the public interest should be protected from retaliation, provided they acted in good faith and followed procedures, a PACE committee said in a draft resolution made public today.
13/06/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Marina Schuster (Germany, ALDE), PACE General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty, and Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), Rapporteur on the situation in Belarus, have expressed deep concern at press reports according to which another death sentence was handed down in Belarus yesterday.