Summary
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights reiterates
that corruption among judges undermines the foundations of the rule
of law, severely impedes the protection of human rights, flaws the
principles of legality and legal certainty and jeopardises the very
possibility of fighting corruption in other sectors of society.
The committee notes that public trust in the integrity of
the judiciary continues to be very low in a number of member States,
and that the judiciary is perceived as being among the most corrupt
institution in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Georgia, Lithuania, the Republic of Moldova, Portugal, Romania,
the Russian Federation, Serbia, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain
and Ukraine. It also deplores the fact that crucial aspects in the
fight against judicial corruption, most notably concerning the implementation
of anti-corruption legislation and access to data, identified in
earlier Parliamentary Assembly resolutions, are left unaddressed
by member States.
Member States are invited to implement fully and in a timely
manner all relevant recommendations of the organs and monitoring
bodies of the Council of Europe, in particular those of the Group
of States against Corruption (GRECO).
Lastly, the committee asks the Assembly to renew its call
on the Committee of Ministers to elaborate a model code of conduct
for judicial officials, and to gather figure-supported information
on prosecutions and convictions of judges for corrupt conduct in
member States.
