Venice Commission :: Council of Europe

The Commission

- Held an exchange of views with Mr Verherstraeten and Mr Wathelet, State Secretaries for Institutional Reforms of Belgium, and adopted the opinion on the revision of the Constitution of Belgium;

- Adopted the opinion on Legal certainty and the independence of the judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina, previously examined by the Sub-Commission on the Judiciary on 14 June 2012;

- Adopted the amicus curiae brief on amendments to the Act on Primary Education of the Sarajevo Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina;

- Held an exchange of views with Mr Robert Repassy, Minister of State for Justice of Hungary, and adopted the opinions on:

o the Act on the Elections of Members of Parliament of Hungary, previously adopted by the Council for Democratic Elections on 14 June 2012;
o the Act on the Rights of Nationalities of Hungary;
o the Act on the Prosecution Service of Hungary and on the Act on the Status of the Prosecutor General, Prosecutors and other Prosecution employees and the Prosecution career, previously examined by the Sub-Commission on the Judiciary on 14 June 2012;
o the Act on the Constitutional Court of Hungary;

- Adopted the opinion on the draft Law on free access to information of Montenegro;

- Held an exchange of views with Mr Igor Kapyrin, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the Council of Europe and with Mr Vladimir Zimin from the Office of the Prosecutor General, and adopted the opinion on the Federal Law of the Russian Federation on the Federal Security Service (FSB);

- Held an exchange of views with Mr Kapyrin, Ms Natalia Polyakova from the Office of the Prosecutor General and Mr Alexander Kurmaz from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and adopted the opinion on the Federal Law of the Russian Federation on Combating Extremist Activity;

- Held an exchange of views with Mr Larbi Abid, First Vice-President and with Mr Habib Khedher, General Rapporteur on the Constitution of the National Constituent Assembly of Tunisia and was informed on the results and conclusions of the joint meeting of 15 June 2012 between the delegation of the NCA and a delegation of the Venice Commission;

- Agreed with the representatives of the National Constituent Assembly to hold exchanges of views on several topics of relevance for the preparation of the new Constitution of Tunisia, notably in July 2012 on the advantages and disadvantages of different constitutional regimes;

- Endorsed the Declaration of Global Principles for non-partisan Election observation and monitoring by citizen organizations and the Code of conduct for non-partisan citizen election observers and monitors;

- Was informed on follow-up to: the Opinion on the compatibility with human rights standards of the legislation on non-governmental organisations of the Republic of Azerbaijan; the Opinion on the sixth revised draft act on forfeiture of assets acquired through criminal activity or administrative violations of Bulgaria; the Opinions on the law on political parties and the law on meetings, rallies, marches and pickets of the Russian Federation; the Opinion on the Draft Amendments to the Constitution of Republika Srpska; and the Opinion on the Draft Law on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest in the Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina;

- Heard an address by Mr Ayres de Freitas Britto, President of the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil, on recent constitutional developments in that country;

- Heard an address by Ms Margarita Popova, Vice President of Bulgaria;

- Was informed on recent activities and co-operation with Jordan;

- Was informed on legal policy in Kazakhstan;

- Was informed on the meeting of the Bureau of the World Conference on Constitutional Justice (16 June 2012), on the establishment of the Asian Association of Constitutional Courts as well as on the results and conclusions of the meeting of the Joint Council on Constitutional Justice which took place in Brno, Czech Republic on 30 May-1 June 2012;

- Was informed on the results and conclusions of the UniDem Conference on “Constitutional Design” which took place in Helsinki on 21-22 May 2012;

- held an exchange of views with representatives of the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe;

- fixed the dates of the next sessions as follows: 12-13 October 2012 and 14-15 December 2012.