Additional
provisions relating to documents
Additional
provisions relating to documents
i.Distribution and classification
of Assembly and Committee documents
1. All documents
of the Parliamentary Assembly not subject to any classification
are public.
2. This applies in
particular to verbatim reports of Assembly debates (CR), procedural
minutes (PV), working papers including reports, questions, communications,
etc. (Doc.), texts adopted, orders of the day, information documents
(AS/Inf), the Assembly List and other various publications. It applies
also to all committee documents with the reference AS/… unless the competent
committee or body has decided otherwise.
3. These documents
are freely available and may be freely quoted. As far as possible
they will also be found on the Parliamentary Assembly website.
4. Draft minutes
of the Bureau and of committee meetings remain confidential at least
until approved by the following Bureau or committee meeting after
which they can be released on request.
5. If a committee
decides to classify some of its working papers or documents the
following possibilities exist:
Restricted documents will
be declassified one year after being issued. They can be made available
on request and under the responsibility of the committee concerned
or the Secretary General of the Assembly but may not be publicly
quoted without special authorisation.
Confidential documents
will be declassified ten years after being issued. Unless the President of
the Assembly or the Chairperson of the committee decides otherwise,
they are only made available to members of the body concerned and
some officials and must not be quoted.
Secret documents will
be declassified thirty years after being issued. A register listing
the numbered copies should be kept by the secretariat concerned.
6. However, on receipt
of a well-founded request, the President of the Assembly has the
authority, after consulting the Bureau or the Chairperson of the
committee concerned, to allow consultation and quotation of all
these types of documents.
ii.Distribution of non-official documents
(Rules adopted by the Bureau of the Assembly on 6 December
1976)
1. Non-official documents
are all papers not emanating from a Council of Europe body or authority
acting as such
, or
from an outside body approached for the purpose by such a body or
authority.
2. They include,
in particular, documents presented by members of the Assembly in
a personal capacity, unsolicited material from non-member governments
or other state authorities, non-governmental organisations, press
articles, etc.
3. Such documents
must not be presented or reproduced on “Council of Europe – Parliamentary
Assembly” headed paper.
4. Secretariat departments
working for the Assembly, whether in the Secretariat of the Assembly
or in General Services, must not arrange for the distribution of
non-official documents.
5. The President
of the Assembly may, however, if he sees fit, and where appropriate
after consultation with members of the Bureau and/or Chairmen of
the political groups, national delegations and Committees concerned,
authorise distribution of a stock of non-official documents with
which he has been supplied, to the individual pigeon-holes of representatives
and substitutes. He may also ask the Secretary General of the Council
of Europe to authorise technical services to assist in reproducing
such documents. Authority may be delegated in this matter to the
Secretary General of the Assembly.
6. Furthermore, where
such documents are sent to members of the Assembly by name, they shall
be passed to the Distribution Service for placing in the individual
pigeon-holes.
