11/07/2013 | President
“Political debate must resume in the Bulgarian parliament” said PACE president Jean-Claude Mignon following his official visit to Bulgaria on 10 and 11 July. Bulgaria's main political forces must re-establish a serious and constructive dialogue to enable the parliament to begin functioning normally again, with the participation of the main opposition party, which won the most votes in the parliamentary elections in May...
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."
10/07/2013 | Monitoring
"We welcome the discussions in the Montenegrin parliament to amend the Constitution with regard to the Constitutional Court, the State Prosecutor and the Judicial Council", co-rapporteurs said.
08/07/2013 | President
PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon, visiting Bulgaria from 10 to 11 July, met the highest state representatives, in particular the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the National Assembly, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
02/07/2013 | Monitoring
Theodora Bakoyannis (Greece, EPP/CD) and Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC), PACE co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Russia, are making a three-day fact-finding visit to Yaroslavl and Moscow from 2-4 July 2013.
28/06/2013 | Session
Strasbourg, 28.06.2013 – Draft Protocol No. 16 to the European Convention on Human Rights may be adopted by the Committee of Ministers and opened for signature and ratification as presently drafted, according to the Parliamentary Assembly. The opinion adopted today by PACE, on the basis of the...
28/06/2013 | Session
PACE has said broad abuse-of-office laws for politicians are “problematic” and should be abolished or redrafted to limit their scope, while special procedures to impeach ministers should be in line with basic rule of law principles and applied with “extra caution and restraint”. The Assembly was adopting a resolution on “Keeping political and criminal responsibility separate” based on a report by Pieter Omtzigt (Netherlands, EPP/CD).
27/06/2013 | Session
PACE has deplored “recent cases of excessive use of force to disperse demonstrators” and reiterated its call on authorities to ensure that police action, where necessary, remains proportionate. Following an urgent debate on “Popular protest and challenges to freedom of assembly, media and speech”, based on a report by Arcadio Díaz Tejera (Spain, SOC), the Assembly...
27/06/2013 | Prizes
Liliane Maury Pasquier (Switzerland, SOC), Chairperson of the PACE Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development and Sir Alan Meale (United Kingdom, SOC), Chairperson of the PACE Sub-Committee on the Europe Prize, today presented the 2013 European Diploma to the mayors of 26 prize-winning municipalities, at a ceremony at Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg.
27/06/2013 | Session
“Wherever laws prevent LGBT people from marching for their rights or teachers from explaining to a young gay man or woman that he or she is as good as the next person, wherever two men or two women cannot kiss in public without putting themselves at risk, human rights take a backward step,” declared Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France’s minister for women’s rights.
27/06/2013 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
"Some parents, often with the best of intentions, give their consent to medically unjustified operations or interventions, which may have serious consequences for the physical integrity of their children", rapporteur Marlene Rupprecht said.
27/06/2013 | Session
The Assembly today called on the Russian Council of the Federation to reject the law on so-called "Propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships among minors" and on the Parliament of Ukraine not to pursue the examination of the draft law on the prohibition of so-called "homosexual propaganda”. The Assembly particularly deplored the unanimous approval by the Russian Duma of the draft law which...