15/10/2008 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Commenting today on the suspension of the visa ban against some high-ranking Belarusian officials, decided earlier this week by the EU Council for External Relations, PACE’s rapporteur on the situation in Belarus Andrea Rigoni said: “The European Union has made the right decision. Breaking the isolation of the Belarusian authorities will help Europe reach out to ordinary Belarusians and will eventually contribute to the spreading of European values both in society and in the political system.”
14/10/2008 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“Our two assemblies have a vital role to perform in combating violence against women,” said José Mendes Bota (Portugal, EPP/CD), PACE member, at the hearing organised by the European Parliament on prevention of domestic violence, in the presence of Jacques Barrot, Vice-President of the European Commission and Anna Zaborska, Chair of the European Parliament’s gender equality committee. “Eighty million women in Europe had suffered assault” but “reliable statistics were needed” according to Mr Mendes Bota, who had come to present the outcomes of the parliamentary dimension of the Council of Europe campaign “Stop violence against women” (2006-2008).
13/10/2008 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Representatives of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe will meet in Madrid on 15-17 October in the 2008 Forum for the Future of Democracy to discuss the potential of the new information technologies to strengthen democracy and increase participation. The Forum will be opened at 16.00 p.m. on Wednesday 15 October by Lluis Maria de Puig, President of the Assembly, Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Yavuz Mildon, President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, and Christer Hallerbyr, State Secretary of the Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality of Sweden, representing the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers.
10/10/2008 | Election observation
A 26-member delegation from PACE led by Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), is now in Azerbaijan to observe the presidential election of 15 October 2008, alongside observers from the European Parliament and the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
10/10/2008 | President
– “To die by order of the state, decreed by a judge or a politician as punishment for a crime, is thankfully a thing of the past in Europe,” said PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig, speaking as the EU joined the Council of Europe in marking 10 October as an annual European day against the death penalty.
03/10/2008 | Monitoring
Pedro Agramunt (Spain, EPP/CD) and Leonid Slutsky (Russian Federation, SOC), co-rapporteurs on Monaco of the PACE Monitoring Committee, are to make a fact-finding visit to the Principality from 6 to 8 October 2008, to report on the honouring of its obligations and commitments to the Council of Europe.
03/10/2008 | Session
Council of Europe member states and parliaments should conduct periodic assessments of the state of their own media freedom, measuring their laws and practice against a range of basic principles drawn up by the Council of Europe, the Assembly said today. The parliamentarians proposed a list of such “indicators” in a resolution based on a report by Wolfgang Wodarg (Germany, SOC).
03/10/2008 | Session
PACE today welcomed the draft Council of Europe Convention on access to official documents as the first binding international treaty to lay down a general right of access to official documents. Nevertheless, the Assembly considered that the draft had shortcomings and therefore recommended that the Committee of Ministers send it back to the Steering Committee on Human Rights for further consideration.
03/10/2008 | Session
In a text unanimously adopted today, PACE has recommended that a framework convention of the Council of Europe be drafted on the severest and most widespread forms of violence against women, in particular domestic violence, sexual assaults, harassment, forced marriages, honour crimes and female genital mutilation. According to the Assembly, this convention should encompass the gender dimension and address the specific nature of gender-based violence.
03/10/2008 | Session
Highlighting the role of teachers and other educational staff in promoting a culture of human rights and democracy, the Assembly today called on European governments to promote “a lifelong learning perspective in respect of teacher education”, in order to help teachers adapt to the needs of rapidly-changing democratic societies.
03/10/2008 | Session
While recalling that the independence of the judiciary is fundamental, and that no influence should be exerted on the Constitutional Court of Turkey, PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig today expressed concern about the judicial proceedings that could lead to the closing-down of the Democratic Society Party. “The dissolution of political parties should be regarded as an exceptional measure to be applied only in cases where the party concerned uses violence or threatens civil peace and the democratic, constitutional order of the country," he said.
02/10/2008 | Session
PACE today expressed concern about elements of draft counter-terrorism legislation in the United Kingdom that would enable the detention of a terrorist suspect for up to 42 days without charge, with limited judicial review. The parliamentarians expressed “serious doubts” whether all the provisions of the draft legislation are in conformity with the European Convention on Human Rights. “A lack of appropriate procedural safeguards may lead to arbitrariness”, the unanimously adopted text underlines.