29/11/2006 | Monitoring
Russia is right to ask for "respect and responsibility" from Georgia and should show exactly the same attitude towards its neighbour country, said PACE rapporteurs Luc van den Brande (Belgium, EPP/CD) and Matyas Eörsi (Hungary, ALDE), speaking at the end of a three-day visit to Moscow to discuss current tensions between the two countries. "Present relations between Georgia and Russia are too heavily charged with negative emotions and are not worthy of the long historic, cultural and personal ties between the people of the two countries," the co-rapporteurs said. They called on politicians to "stop exchanging verbal provocations and show the same wisdom as their societies". Both men earlier visited Tbilisi.
27/11/2006 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), as Chair of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, has just sent an urgent appeal to the Russian authorities to ratify Protocol 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights before the end of the year. The purpose of Protocol 14, which was opened for signature in May 2004, is to ensure more satisfactory functioning of the European Court of Human Rights. "45 of our 46 member states have already ratified it," said Marty, "but Russia’s non-ratification is preventing improved functioning of the Court because all the member countries have to ratify Protocol 14 before it can enter into force."
27/11/2006 | News
“Whether we are national, regional or local elected representatives or simple citizens, domestic violence against women is a problem that concerns us all. It is our individual and collective responsibility to break the silence and take action”, PACE President René van der Linden said in Madrid today at the launching of the Council of Europe Campaign to combat domestic violence.
26/11/2006 | News
''Domestic violence must be criminalised, victims protected and perpetrators punished across Europe''. The call comes as Europe marks the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It is also the prelude to a major conference on the subject in Madrid, Spain, where the 46 member Council will launch a campaign aimed at stopping a major human rights abuse.
24/11/2006 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Tony Lloyd (United Kingdom, SOC), PACE Rapporteur on Prosecution of offences falling within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, undertook fact-finding missions to Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia on 20, 21, 22 and 23 November 2006 respectively. M. Lloyd welcomed constructive steps undertaken in all countries of the region to conclude outstanding issues relating to the prosecution of war criminals. However, he deeply regretted the lack of political will, so many years after the tragedy of the Balkan wars, to finalise this process and to close the impunity gap.
23/11/2006 | Monitoring
The Raporteurs of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly, Matyas Eorsi, co-Rapporteur for Georgia and leader of the ALDE group and Luc van den Brande, co-Rapporteur for Russia and leader of the EPP group, today called for dialogue between Georgia and Russia as a key to the solution of the current tensions between the two countries. They also reasserted the role of the PACE as a forum for dialogue and parliamentary diplomacy.
17/11/2006 | Bureau
PACE Bureau meeting in San Marino on 16 November 2006, deplored the fact that the re-trial of the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor accused of deliberately contaminating some 426 children with the AIDS virus, which ended last week, failed to address the fundamental flaws which marked the investigations and the first trial struck down in December 2005.
17/11/2006 | News
Ahead of a major Council of Europe campaign to combat domestic violence against women, to be launched in Madrid on 27 November, the PACE Standing Committee, meeting in San Marino, today adopted the following declaration: “Domestic violence against women is a serious assault on women’s dignity which no Council of Europe member state should tolerate. The PACE, committed to defending human rights, publicly and unequivocally condemns domestic violence. Such violence is the result of an unequal relationship between women and men which it also perpetuates..."
17/11/2006 | News
PACE President René van der Linden today urged Council of Europe member states to provide the Organisation with “the financial and political support it needs” to fulfil its potential. Speaking at the opening of the Assembly’s Standing Committee in San Marino, which has just taken over the six-month Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers, the President said: “I strongly urge the San Marinese chairmanship to foster a constructive atmosphere for budgetary negotiations, especially amongst those member states whose narrow, penny-pinching attitude is frankly embarrassing.”
17/11/2006 | Standing Committee
PACE Standing Committee meeting today in San Marino, called for non-citizens in Latvia to be granted at least the same rights as other EU nationals living in the country. In a resolution, the parliamentarians called for automatic naturalisation of non-citizens who are elderly or born in the country, as well as those who have made “a worthwhile contribution to the establishment of the newly independent Latvian state”. More flexible naturalisation procedures should be considered, and those applying should not be asked to express convictions that are “contrary to their reading of the history of their cultural community or nation”.
17/11/2006 | News
Europe’s parliaments should promote initiatives aimed at prohibiting the import and marketing of seal-derived products, following bans introduced in the US and Mexico, PACE’s Standing Committee said today. Approving a report by Pasquale Nessa (Italy, EPP/CD) at a meeting in San Marino, the parliamentarians also called on seal-hunting states to maintain seal numbers, ban cruel hunting methods and encourage “seal-watching” as a viable alternative to hunting.
16/11/2006 | President
PACE President René van der Linden today welcomed the prolongation of the moratorium on execution of the death penalty until 2010, which follows from the Russian State Duma’s decision to postpone the introduction of jury trials in Chechnya.“The practical consequences of this decision are in line with the widespread opposition to the death penalty that I have encountered amongst leading politicians during my visits to the Russian Federation,” said Mr van der Linden. “Nevertheless, it remains essential for the Russian authorities to fulfil the commitment they undertook on joining the Council of Europe 10 years ago, by abolishing the death penalty once and for all and ratifying Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights,” he added.