21/11/2011 | President
A 15-member PACE delegation, led by Tomáš Jirsa (Czech Republic, EDG), will visit Morocco from 22 to 26 November 2011 to observe the parliamentary elections on 25 November. The delegation will meet, inter alia, representatives of the parliamentary groups, the Secretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior in charge of election administration, the President of the National Human Rights Council and representatives of civil society, the media and political parties not represented in parliament.
21/11/2011 | President
At the end of his working visit to Monaco, in the margins of the Conference on the Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child 2012-2015, PACE President today met with the Minister of State Michel Roger and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Badia. Mr Cavusoglu praised “the commitment of the Monegasque authorities” to the Council of Europe standards and values.
20/11/2011 | President
“The overall goal of the new Child’s rights programme debated today will be to implement international standards on the rights of the child through comprehensive national strategies. I can assure that the Assembly will take an active part in this process and the issue of children’s rights will remain high on our agenda in the years to come..."
18/11/2011 | President
“We should use fully our democratic oversight powers in order to ensure that Governments take into account the inter-cultural dimension in the design of their policies and legislation. Ever-closer ties should be developed with all of the actors in the society, particularly with ethnic and religious communities, including minority groups”, PACE President said today in Istanbul addressing the Annual conference of the international association of political consultants.
18/11/2011 | President
“The countries of South-East Europe and of the Black Sea region should play an active role in sharing their own experiences of democratic transformations with our neighbors, thus building the bridge between Europe and the wider Euro-Asian and Euro-Mediterranean region. By sharing their own good practices, as well as by learning from our neighbors’ experiences, they could make a concrete contribution to making our region even more politically stable and prosperous”, PACE President said today in Istanbul addressing the Black Sea energy and economic Forum.
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 | 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.