26/04/2010 | Bureau
PACE Bureau, meeting this morning in Strasbourg, adopted the following declaration: “The Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is concerned about the continuing political crisis in Albania following the June 2009 parliamentary elections, notwithstanding the partial return of opposition Socialist MPs to the Albanian Parliament after the visit of PACE’s Presidential Committee to Tirana in February this year".
22/04/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Christoph Strässer (Germany, SOC), PACE rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan, has welcomed today’s judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, which held that the prison sentence against opposition journalist Eynulla Fatullayev violates, among other things, the freedom of expression and of information protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
20/04/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“I was shocked to learn that the Hamas movement has, for the first time since it took over in Gaza, applied the death penalty to two Palestinians – and I am deeply concerned at reports that it is contemplating further executions soon,” said Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD) rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty for PACE, in a letter today to the Secretary General of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).
16/04/2010 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The future Medicrime Council of Europe Convention “is not expected to eliminate counterfeit medicines or to make counterfeiters extinct, but it criminalises counterfeiting,” and reflects the governments and parliaments’ willingness to “reaffirm their commitment to co-operating in the detection of counterfeit medical products and combat this phenomenon," Bernard Marquet (Monaco, ALDE) said yesterday, at the opening of a conference on this issue.
14/04/2010 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu has said that holding free and fair parliamentary elections in November would be “the best way” for Azerbaijan to celebrate its tenth anniversary as a member of the Council of Europe next year. The President, speaking mid-way through a four-day official visit to Azerbaijan (13-16 April), said the aim of his visit was to express support for the continuation of democratic reforms in the country.
14/04/2010 | Session
Addresses by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, as well as a series of debates on the consequences of the economic crisis, are among highlights of PACE forthcoming session. Two proposals to hold urgent debates have been tabled, on the urgent need for a constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina [...] and on the situation in Belarus. The parliamentarians will debate a report on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, which calls for the legal recognition of same-sex partnerships across Europe. There will also be a debate on the consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia, with an intervention from the former head of the international fact-finding mission on the conflict Ambassador Heidi Tagliavini.
13/04/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Jean-Charles Gardetto (Monaco, EPP/CD), rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the protection of witnesses as the cornerstone for justice and reconciliation in the Balkans, will make a fact-finding visit to Pristina on 15-16 April. During his visit, he will meet representatives of the judicial system, in particular.
10/04/2010 | President
“I was deeply shocked to learn of this morning’s crash, which is both a terrible personal tragedy and a national tragedy,” said PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu in a statement. “I want to extend my most heartfelt condolences to the families of those who died so suddenly in Smolensk, but also to the authorities and the people of Poland. Poland has lost a great President, a man of profound values who served his country with conviction and determination in a time of change.
09/04/2010 | Monitoring
Kimmo Sasi (Finland, EPP/CD) and Karin Woldseth (Norway, EDG), PACE co-rapporteurs for monitoring the honouring of obligations and commitments by Bosnia and Herzegovina, will make a fact-finding visit to Sarajevo on 12-13 April. During this visit, they will examine the progress of constitutional reform and the execution of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case Sejdic and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina.
08/04/2010 | President
"Roma are full citizens of Europe. Yet their situation within our society raises serious human rights issues," say Micheline Calmy-Rey, Chair of the Committee of Ministers, and PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu, in a statement to mark International Roma Day.
08/04/2010 | President
Common values such as democracy, human rights and the rule of law are a form of “soft security” that promote prosperity and peace, PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu has stressed at a joint parliamentary conference in St Petersburg on the future of European security. “Our countries increasingly look at common problems through the same prism, or from the same vantage point,” he pointed out, referring to the work of PACE and the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly. But there should be “no slackening” in joint efforts to deal with common threats such as terrorism or nuclear proliferation, he added.
07/04/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur for the abolition of the death penalty, strongly protested against the execution in China for drug smuggling of Japanese national Mitsunobu Akana. "The execution in China of this Japanese citizen, and the impending execution of several others, is an outrage. Reportedly, the accused Japanese did not even have a qualified interpreter when he was interrogated and his argument that he only played a subordinate role in the offence was not accepted at all...