29/05/2013 | President
At the end of his official visit to Georgia, PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon has welcomed the democratic transition of power in the country following the parliamentary elections in October 2012, which were generally considered by observers to have been free and fair. He invited the authorities, and all political forces, to continue developing a culture of political cohabitation, calling for mutual respect between the different parties.
27/05/2013 | Monitoring
Michael Aastrup Jensen (Denmark, ALDE) and Boriss Cilevičs (Latvia, SOC), PACE co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Georgia, have called on the Georgian authorities to ensure that the legal proceedings against former Prime Minister Merabishvili and former Healthcare Minister Tchiaberashvili are conducted transparently...
27/05/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Corruption remains a major problem in Europe, posing a serious threat to the rule of law, according to the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee. In a draft resolution approved today in Izmir, the committee said corruption in the public sector took many forms...
27/05/2013 | President
During a visit to Baku, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today called for reinforced co-operation between Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe, with a view to preparing for the forthcoming Azerbaijani chairmanship of the Council's Committee of Ministers, beginning in May 2014.
27/05/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee has given its green light to a proposal which would allow states’ highest courts to obtain opinions from the European Court of Human Rights on questions of principle relating to the interpretation or application of rights and freedoms defined in the European Convention and its protocols.
24/05/2013 | President
PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon will make an official visit to Azerbaijan from 26 to 28 May, during which he is due to meet the President of the Republic, the Speaker of Parliament, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the leaders of the political parties in Parliament, and members of the Parliamentary Committee on international and inter-parliamentary relations.
24/05/2013 | President
PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon will make an official visit to Georgia from 28 to 29 May, during which he is due to meet the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of Parliament, the Minister for Foreign Affairs...
24/05/2013 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Liliane Maury Pasquier (Switzerland, SOC), PACE Rapporteur of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy on the parliamentary contribution to solving the Western Sahara conflict, currently on a visit to Rabat and to Laayoune (21-24 May 2013), has met with national and local Moroccan authorities...
24/05/2013 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
"Freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly are pillars of democratic life in any country: Council of Europe member states must ensure that everyone, including LGBT people, can enjoy them", Håkon Haugli said.
24/05/2013 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
The Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination expressed deep concern at the repeated infringement, in some Council of Europe member states, of the right of freedom of assembly and freedom of expression in relation to LGBTs.
24/05/2013 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
At the end of a hearing on the situation of transgender persons, the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination decided to further discuss the issue with a view to improve the situation of transgender persons particularly in the fields of health care, transphobic hate crime and gender recognition.
23/05/2013 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
The question of how far media should regulate themselves or be regulated by the state was debated this week by participants at a London conference on the role of national parliaments in media regulation.