26/01/2006 | News
At the end of a debate on the policy of return for failed asylum seekers in the Netherlands, a policy the Dutch authorities approved in 2004 for returning approximately 26,000 failed asylum seekers, the PACE considered that it broadly complies with the recommendations on return made by Council of Europe bodies. However, some features – also to be found in the policies of other countries, including Switzerland and the United Kingdom – raise concerns.
26/01/2006 | Election observation
Strasbourg, 26.01.2006 – The elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council were conducted in a well-organised and democratic fashion, "better than seen in some Council of Europe member states", according to a nine-member delegation from the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly which observed the elections.
26/01/2006 | News
Everyone should be free to define themselves as a member of a cultural “nation”, irrespective of their citizenship, the Assembly said today following a debate on “the concept of nation”, based on a report by György Frunda (Romania, EPP/CD). At the same time, the parliamentarians said, Council of Europe member states should avoid defining themselves in exclusively ethnic terms, and should do their utmost to help their minorities, a source of enrichment, to flourish.
25/01/2006 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
While regretting that serious human rights violations still occur on a massive scale in the Chechen Republic, the Assembly today urged the Committee of Ministers (CM) “to confront its responsibilities in the face of one of the most serious human rights issues in any of the Council of Europe’s member states”. According to the parliamentarians, the lack of effective reaction by the Council’s executive body has the capacity to seriously threaten the credibility of the whole Organisation. .
25/01/2006 | News
Since October 2005, because of the persistent failure of the Verkhovna Rada to swear in the nine appointed judges, the Constitutional Court is unable to function. This delay is unacceptable in a State that claims to be governed by the rule of law. The Monitoring Committee recalls the Assembly’s Resolution 1466 (2005) adopted in October 2005 and its previous statement of 15 December 2005, and regrets that despite the repeated calls on the Verkhovna Rada and its leadership to renew the composition of the Constitutional Court without undue delay, the latter have gone unheeded.
25/01/2006 | News
The Assembly today decided to ratify the credentials of Azerbaijan’s twelve-member delegation, but set out a list of urgent measures needed “to restore confidence in the electoral, and more generally the democratic process” in Azerbaijan – including ensuring that the election rerun in 10 constituencies fully abides by democratic principles – and said it would decide in June whether to reconsider its decision in the light of progress made. On the opening day of the session ten members of the Assembly had supported a challenge to the credentials on substantial grounds by Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC), one of two co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Azerbaijan, who said that Azerbaijan's recent election was not in line with Council of Europe standards.
25/01/2006 | News
The Political Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), meeting in Strasbourg this afternoon, adopted the following declaration: “The Political Affairs Committee is extremely worried about the Iranian decision to put an end to the moratorium on nuclear activities. This unilateral step, taken in spite of many calls not to do so, further undermines the international community’s confidence in Iran, which has already been damaged by that country’s secret nuclear programme. Against this background, Iranian declarations that this programme has no military purposes, inspire less and less trust.
25/01/2006 | News
Addressing the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly today, Romania's President, Traian Basescu, said that his country's transition to democracy, aided by the Council of Europe, had helped to pave the way for membership of the European Union. He also spoke of his strong support for the activities of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, particularly the creation of a Black Sea Euroregion, whose launch conference would take place in Romania in March.
25/01/2006 | News
PACE President, René van der Linden, addressing the Council of Europe Conference of INGOs in Strasbourg today, stated that civil society must play a more central role in the organisation’s projects to strengthen democracy.
25/01/2006 | Session
PACE today strongly condemned the massive human rights violations committed by totalitarian communist regimes and expressed sympathy, understanding and recognition for the victims of these crimes. The Assembly said these violations included individual and collective assassinations and executions, death in concentration camps, starvation, deportations, torture, slave labour and other forms of mass physical terror.
24/01/2006 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware of the “rendition” of more than a hundred persons affecting Europe, according to Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty, whose interim assessment was made public today in an information memorandum. Citing statements made by American officials and others, Mr Marty also said there was “a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of ‘relocation’ or ‘outsourcing’ of torture”. He welcomed the arrival yesterday of detailed information he had requested from Eurocontrol and the EU's Satellite Agency.
24/01/2006 | News
"I would like to express my concern. In the United States, the media are under great pressure not to report on this affair, and this has been confirmed to me by journalists. The Washington Post has not given the names of the countries concerned, although it knows them, and this is a result of pressure from the United States Government. (…) We are representing civil society here. Our aim is not to place the blame; it is far simpler and nobler than that. It is to find out the truth that is being hidden from us today", Dick Marty (Suisse, ALDE) said today in Strasbourg at the opening of a PACE current affairs debate on alleged secret detentions in Council of Europe member States.