What are the limits for decisions made by politicians involving risks that are not the normal risks of normal citizens? In a hearing on this issue, organised by PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee in Paris today, the rapporteur Pieter Omtzigt (Netherlands, EPP/CD) stressed that political and criminal responsibility had to be kept separate.

“Political decisions shall be judged by parliament and ultimately the voters at the next elections. Criminal acts shall give rise to prosecution, no matter by whom they are committed. Provisions in criminal law effectively criminalising political decisions blur the line between political and criminal responsibility and are open to abuse,” he said.

For his report, Mr Omtzigt said he would take a closer look at two emblematic situations in Iceland and Ukraine – the cases of former Prime Ministers Geir Haarde and Yulia Tymoshenko and former Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko. “This doesn’t mean that we try to determine whether they are guilty or innocent – this is not the role of a parliamentary report – but we can try to distill lessons from these cases in order to develop a set of standards, a yardstick which can help us to assess whether criminal prosecutions against political actors are in order, in addition to their political responsibility before the voters.”