Newsletter of the Venice Commission

-

3/2011

In this issue:

• Highlights of the June 2011 session
   

• Selected events
   

• Publications
   

• Forthcoming activities
   

All decisions of the June plenary

Meeting room of the Venice Commission


At its 87th plenary session on 17-18 June 2011,
the Commission  

- adopted/endorsed opinions, inter alia, concerning

• Armenia - the draft electoral code and a supplement to the penitentiary code ;
• Belarus  - the compatibility with universal Human Rights standards of an official warning addressed by the Ministry of Justice to the Belarusian Helsinki Committee;
• Bulgaria  - the Unified Electoral code and the 6^th revised version of the draft law on forfeiture of assets acquired through criminal activity and administrative violation;
• Hungary -  the new constitution;
• ...;

- adopted the report on out-of-country voting;

- held an exchange of views with:

• Mr R. Ben Achour, State Minister in the Prime Minister’s office and newly appointed substitute member in respect of Tunisia, on recent constitutional developments in Tunisia, and was informed on recent and planned activities with regard to that country;

• Mr Davit Harutyunyan, Chairman of the Standing Committee on State and legal affairs of Armenia,

• Ms Margarita Popova, Minister of Justice of Bulgaria,

• Mr Joszef Szàjer, MEP, Hungary

• Ms Galina Skripkina and with other members of the delegation from the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan;

• Mr Ranko Krivokapić, Speaker of the parliament of Montenegro,

• Mr Farouk Ahmed Sultan, President of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt.

-   took note of the compilations of opinions and reports on  

o        the protection of minorities and

o        constitutional justice;

-          decided to re-establish the Sub-commission on Latin America;

(read more...)

• Moldova - elections of the President

Since 2009, despite repeated dissolutions of parliament, several attempts to elect the president and an attempt to modify the Constitution through referendum, the political and institutional stalemate in Moldova - resulting mainly from the constitutional provisions  on the procedure of the election of the President (Article 78) - remains unresolved, and the President of the country still has to be elected.
 
On 19 April 2011, the Constitutional Court of Moldova requested the Venice Commission to give an amicus curiae brief on the issues raised in the constitutional complaint brought by the group of deputies concerning the procedure for the election of the President.

(read the summary)

• Belarus - official warning against Belarussian Helsinki Committee (BHC)

The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus issued a written warning to the BHC on 12 January 2011, the day after the BHC had sent a communication to the UN Special Rapporteur.  In its statement, the BHC said inter alia that about 700 arrested  persons in the aftermath of presidential elections were not allowed to meet their advocates in private. The warning stated that the said communication was “an attempt to discredit the Republic of Belarus in the eyes of the international community".

(read the summary)

• Out of country voting - report

National practices regarding the right to vote of citizens living abroad are far from uniform in Europe. However, developments in legislation, such as the judgment delivered in 2011 by the European Court of Human Rights in a case concerning Greece, which is not yet final, point to a favourable trend in out-of-country voting, in national elections, at least as regards citizens who have maintained ties with their country of origin.   

(read the summary)

Opinions 

• Armenia – electoral law;
   

• Azerbaijan - political parties; NGOs;
   

• Belarus – compatibility with universal human rights standards of Article 193-1 of the Criminal Code of Belarus vis-à-vis the rights of non registered associations in this country;
   

• Georgia – draft new electoral code;
   

• Montenegro – draft law on the Ombudsperson;
   

• Peru - amicus curiae re. crimes against humanity;
   

• "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"- the electoral code;
   

• Turkey - draft law on the Constitutional Court;
   

• Ukraine - parliamentary elections; judiciary and status of judges; freedom of assembly; the Bar association.

Studies

  Electoral issues:

• Use of administrative resources during electoral campaign

• Extra-institutional actors in the democratic system (lobbying)

• Freedom of religion - joint OSCE - VC revised guidelines

Link to the calendar of forthcoming meetings

venice@coe.int