07/03/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“I warmly welcome last night’s 27-20 vote by the Maryland Senate to repeal the death penalty,” said Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), the PACE general rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty.
07/03/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The PACE monitoring co-rapporteurs for Ukraine, Mailis Reps (Estonia, ALDE) and Marietta de Pourbaix-Lundin (Sweden, EPP/CD), together with the Rapporteur on “Keeping political and criminal responsibility separate”, Pieter Omtzigt (Netherlands, EPP/CD), have jointly expressed their deep concern and disappointment at the revocation of the parliamentary mandate of Serhiy Vlasenko.
21/02/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“I firmly condemn Japan‘s execution of three prisoners on death row,” said Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), general rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the death penalty.
21/02/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Pieter Omtzigt (Netherlands, EPP/CD), who is preparing a report on “Keeping political and criminal responsibility separate” for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has said that it is urgent to address the status of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko as ‘political prisoners’ within the meaning of the definition adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly in October 2012
18/12/2012 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
At the end of a fact-finding visit to Copenhagen made in the context of preparation of his report on “Strengthening the institution of Ombudsman in Europe”, the rapporteur of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Jordi Xuclà i Costa (Spain, ALDE), noted that the Danish system for protecting citizens’ rights against maladministration was a good example on which other European states could draw.
13/12/2012 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Following a fact-finding visit to Stockholm in connection with the preparation of his report on protection of minors against sectarian influence, the rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights Rudy Salles (France, EPP/CD) has ascertained that in Sweden the national education system, particularly the arrangements for funding private schools, together with the system for registering associations, embody defects that might prompt abuses at the hands of sectarian movements.
11/12/2012 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
In a draft resolution adopted today by the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights at its meeting in Paris, the committee called for reinforcement of the selection procedures for the experts involved in the principal human rights monitoring mechanisms of the Council of Europe.
10/12/2012 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“The Council of Europe works on a daily basis to protect human rights throughout Europe. Over the years, the Council has recorded many successes, first and foremost of which is the European Convention on Human Rights and its control mechanism...," declared today Gilbert Saboya Sunyé and Jean-Claude Mignon.
13/11/2012 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
States Parties bear the “primary responsibility” for ensuring the European Convention on Human rights is applied effectively at national level – alongside the Strasbourg Court and Committee of Ministers – according to PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee. Approving a report by Serhii Kivalov (Ukraine, EDG) during a meeting yesterday in Paris, the committee deplored the fact that the Court was “still overloaded with a large number of repetitive cases revealing widespread dysfunctions in national legal orders”.
08/11/2012 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE’s General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty, Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), today regretted the narrow loss of SAFE California initiative in the California election on 6 November. Addressing a message to anti-death penalty activists, she stated: “You have come a long way already, don’t give up!...
10/10/2012 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“The tide is continuing to turn against the death penalty worldwide. The Council of Europe, by making abolition of the death penalty a condition of membership, has led the way at regional level, but there is still plenty of work for us to do,” said Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty, speaking today on the occasion of the World Day against the Death Penalty.
20/09/2012 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“Democratically elected parliaments are well-placed to find the best solutions to prevent and punish urban violence in each European country,” today stressed Christopher Chope (United Kingdom, EDG), Chairperson of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, intervening on behalf of the Assembly’s President at the 31st Council of Europe Conference of Ministers of Justice in Vienna (19-21 September 2012).