20/11/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD), rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of PACE, will make a fact-finding visit to Rome on 23 and 24 November as part of the preparation of his report on the implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. This is the third, after Bulgaria and Ukraine, in a series of visits intended to bring parliamentary pressure to bear on states where the execution of the Court’s judgments meets with delays or difficulties.
19/11/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany ALDE), the former Rapporteur on "politically-motivated abuses of the criminal justice system in Council of Europe member states", today expressed her dismay at the death in a remand prison in Moscow of the lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, who had defended Hermitage Investment/HSBC against fraudulent manoeuvres allegedly involving high Russian officials, as described in the report adopted by the Assembly in October 2009.
16/11/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
While recalling that the eradication of homophobia and transphobia requires the member states political resolve, the PACE Legal Affairs Committee meeting this morning in Paris adopted a draft resolution urging European governments to guarantee “legal recognition of same-sex partnerships” and the possibility of joint parental responsibility for each partner’s children, or even “the right of each partner to adopt the other partner’s children”.
26/10/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), PACE rapporteur on the human rights situation in the North Caucasus, today expressed his shock at the murder, on Sunday 25 October, of Maksharip Aushev, Ingush opposition figure, in the region of Kabardino-Balkaria, a neighbouring republic of Ingushetia.
22/09/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
European governments should be guided by the words of a great American judge of last century, Mr Justice Brandeis, who wrote in 1928: “If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law,” according to Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD), speaking during a round table in Florence on 18-19 September on the challenges for the judiciary of the fight against terrorism.
11/09/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
A PACE rapporteur has expressed his “serious concern” that 36 of the 47 Council of Europe member states are now failing to fully implement within a reasonable time judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, which are supposed to be binding. Implementing judgments normally means that the state concerned pays the victim the compensation directed by the Court, and changes its laws or practices to avoid a repetition of the violation. Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD), who regularly monitors this issue for the PACE, was presenting an updated list of outstanding judgments to the Assembly’s Legal Affairs Committee in Paris.
21/08/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“With yesterday’s report that Lithuania hosted a secret CIA prison, as well as other recent revelations regarding the ‘black sites’ in Poland and Romania, the time has now come for Europe to account in full for its involvement in this shameful episode," said Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), PACE's rapporteur on secret detentions. "My own sources seem to confirm yesterday’s news report that US ‘high-value detainees’ were held in Lithuania. The authorities should now carry out a full, independent and credible investigation [into] what occurred on the outskirts of Vilnius."
06/08/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
"It is totally unacceptable to ignore binding interim measures ordered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). It is disgraceful, for a mature democracy like Italy, to have send Ali Toumi back to Tunisia last Sunday, a case in which there exists an imminent risk of irreparable damage to the applicant”, today said Herta Däubler-Gmelin (Germany, SOC) and Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD), respectively the Chair of the PACE Legal Affairs Committee and the rapporteur on the implementation of Strasbourg Court judgments.
03/08/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
In connection with his forthcoming report on inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo, Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), rapporteur of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, today began a fact-finding visit to Serbia (3 to 5 August), immediately followed by a visit to Albania (5 to 6 August). Mr Marty will meet various official representatives in the two countries, including the Justice and Interior ministers and state prosecutors, the national parliamentary delegations and NGOs, particularly ones representing the families of missing persons.
28/07/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Christoph Strässer (Germany, SOC), PACE rapporteur on the follow-up to the issue of political prisoners in Azerbaijan, is disturbed by the arrest in controversial circumstances of Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade, two activist members of civil society who studied in Germany. "These arrests will draw the international community's attention to the cases of journalists and NGO activists convicted on the basis of dubious allegations of vandalism and slander", said Mr Strässer. "I shall, when preparing my report, pay great attention to the arrest and conviction of opposition activists and representatives of civil society."
22/07/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany, ALDE), former PACE rapporteur on the Gongadze case and co-rapporteur on Ukraine, today welcomed the arrest of former general and top Ukrainian Interior Ministry official Oleksiy Pukach, who had been in hiding since 2003. He was charged in absentia with having participated in the murder of journalist Giorgiy Gongadze, for which three policemen were sentenced to prison terms last year. "The arrest of Oleksiy Pukach provides the Ukrainian law enforcement authorities with a unique opportunity of shedding light on who ordered the gruesome murder of journalist Giorgiy Gongadze”, Mrs. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said.
16/07/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Following the brutal murder of Natalia Estemirova, a highly respected human rights defender and head of the Human Rights Center “Memorial” in Grozny (Chechnya), PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig, and parliamentary rapporteurs today expressed their shock and dismay, urging the authorities to hold to account not only the direct perpetrators, but also the instigators and organisers of this heinous crime. “This is one murder of a human rights defender too many - the Russian authorities in Moscow, at the highest level, must at last take decisive action to rein in the lawlessness in Chechnya and the whole North Caucasus region and protect those who stand up for the rights of their fellow citizens, as a matter of national responsibility”, they said.