22/03/2023 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights today expressed great concern by the humanitarian crisis unfolding due to the ongoing obstruction of the Lachin Corridor. It adopted the following statement: Statement by the Committee on Legal Affairs on the obstruction of the Lachin Corridor
22/03/2023 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
There has been an increase in the number of European Court of Human Rights judgments pending before the Committee of Ministers, from 5,231 at the end of 2019 to 6,256 on 1 March 2023, the PACE Legal Affairs Committee warned today. Having seen previous progress on reducing the backlog, it...
22/03/2023 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
There is not any hierarchy between the European Convention of Human Rights, EU law and national constitutions, in the sense of a traditional approach to the hierarchy of norms within a constitutional framework. Indeed, in the context of such multi-level constitutionalism “any attempt to impose...
02/03/2023 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
On Wednesday the Israeli Knesset gave its preliminary approval to a bill that would allow courts to impose the death penalty for terrorists found guilty of killing Israeli citizens. “This is a worrying development,” Aleksandar Nikoloski (North Macedonia, EPP/CD), PACE’s General Rapporteur on...
13/12/2022 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Ukraine’s Deputy Justice Minister Iryna Mudra spelled out proposals for a legal mechanism enabling her country to be compensated for the damage caused by Russia’s aggression during a PACE hearing in Paris on 12 December, web-streamed live. She set out detailed proposals for the creation of an...
12/12/2022 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Politicians and journalists from Poland, Spain and Greece who have been targeted by the Pegasus or similar spyware gave testimony at a public hearing of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Paris on 12 December 2022, which was live-streamed in English. The hearing...
06/12/2022 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Legal mechanisms for Ukraine to be compensated financially for the damage caused by Russia’s aggression will be the main focus of a hearing of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Paris on 12 December, to be web-streamed live, with the participation of Ukraine’s Deputy...
29/11/2022 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Sunna Ævarsdóttir (Iceland, SOC), PACE’s rapporteur for follow-up on the implementation of Resolution 2446 (2022) on “Reported cases of political prisoners in the Russian Federation”, today reacted to news about Alexei Navalny’s indefinite solitary confinement in the penal colony where he is...
15/11/2022 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The emergence of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) – that can select and attack targets without human intervention – requires clear regulation of their development and use, to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and human rights, said the Legal Affairs Committee, by adopting...
13/10/2022 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Europe can learn “useful lessons” from the experience of prisons during the Covid pandemic, continuing to use alternatives to detention to reduce the prison population and ease overcrowding, according to PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee. In a draft resolution based on a report by Givi Mikanadze...
09/10/2022 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
On the occasion of the World Day against the Death Penalty (10 October), PACE General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty Vladimir Vardanyan (Armenia, EPP/CD) made the following statement: "In this year’s World Day against the Death Penalty, we focus on capital punishment and the...
13/09/2022 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The compulsory use of Covid passes, in particular vaccine passes – aimed at restricting travelling and access to certain public venues – entails risks of discrimination and infringements of human rights and fundamental freedoms, according to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. The...