18/11/2011 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will undertake a working visit to the United Kingdom on 21-23 November 2011, during which he is due to meet the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, the Lord Speaker, the Chair of the House of Lords EU Select Committee, the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Turkey and the Chair of the delegation of the United Kingdom to PACE. Mr Çavuşoğlu will also attend Prime Minister’s question time.
17/11/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
At its meeting in Paris yesterday, PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights decided to declassify an information document on "Ad hoc judges at the European Court of Human Rights: an overview".
17/11/2011 | Standing Committee
Reform of the European Court of Human Rights and other priorities of the United Kingdom during its six-month Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe are due to be discussed at a meeting of the PACE Standing Committee in Edinburgh on Friday 25 November 2011. British Minister for Europe David Lidington will hold an exchange of views with the committee, which brings together around 60 parliamentarians from the Council of Europe’s 47 member states. This will be preceded by an opening address from PACE President Mevlüt Cavuşoğlu.
17/11/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, meeting today in Florence for the fifth meeting of the Network of Contact Parliamentarians to stop sexual violence against children, made the following statement:
17/11/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
In a report on ‘an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights on national minorities’, presented to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in Paris today, rapporteur György Frunda (Romania, EPP/CD) regrets that the main Council of Europe instruments for the protection of the rights of national minorities have not been ratified by all member states and underlines the numerous shortcomings in their implementation, already referred to in previous PACE Resolutions.
17/11/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“The continuing suffering of relatives and friends of no less than 14,000 mission persons in the Western Balkans, 2,300 in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation and close to 2,000 in Cyprus as well as countless missing persons left behind by the conflicts in the South Caucasus region remain a major obstacle to lasting peace and reconciliation,” Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD) stressed at a meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in Paris today.
16/11/2011 | President
“Algeria plays a key role for stability and economic development in the Euro-Mediterranean region, today said PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu, at the end of a three-day visit to the country. “While I fully understand the Algerian wish to introduce reforms at their own pace and in accordance with the national realities and sensibility, and following the principle of sovereignty, many key issues require common responses and co-operation..."
16/11/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“The authority and effectiveness of the European Convention on Human Rights system is contingent on the political will and commitment of member states to provide the Council of Europe with appropriate financial means to implement its human rights mandate,” PACE rapporteur Marie-Louise Bemelmans-Videc (Netherlands, EPP/CD) said at a meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in Paris today.
16/11/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE rapporteur for Belarus, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), is deeply concerned about the situation of Andrei Sannikov, former Presidential candidate, who has reportedly disappeared from a Belarusian penitentiary. On 14 May 2011, the Pershamaiski District Court of Minsk sentenced Mr Sannikov to five years in a medium security penal colony. No information on his whereabouts and the circumstances of his disappearance was given to the family or to his lawyers.
15/11/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
In a statement adopted today at its meeting in Paris, the Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), calls on the Iraqi authorities to prevent humanitarian disaster and human rights violations at Camp Ashraf: “The Committee is concerned about the situation of the residents of Camp Ashraf (also referred to as Camp New Iraq), who are at risk of facing violent expulsion by the Iraqi security forces..."
15/11/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
The Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), meeting in Paris on 14-15 November 2011, today adopted the following statement: “On the first day of 2011 a suicide bombing in a Coptic church in Alexandria killed 21 persons and wounded 79. The Parliamentary Assembly condemned unequivocally such violence. We all hoped that, after the success of the Egyptian revolution, such tragedies would not be repeated..."
15/11/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
The Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), reaffirmed the universal nature of human rights, approving today in Paris a report by Denis Badré (France, ALDE) on the subject. According to the rapporteur, human rights can empower because they start with the individual: notably, the right to life, the principle of non-discrimination, the right to justice, a fair trial, protection against torture, the right to having an opinion, a faith.