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Recommendation 2083 (2016)
Introduction of sanctions against parliamentarians
Parliamentary Assembly
1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers to its Resolution 2087 (2016) on
the introduction of sanctions against parliamentarians and, in particular,
to the current situation involving a growing number of restrictions
on travel by national parliamentarians from Council of Europe member
States to other member States.
2. The Assembly draws the Committee of Ministers’ attention to
the continued failure by certain member States to honour the international
commitments they have freely entered into by hindering the Assembly’s activities
with obstacles to the exercise of its members’ duties.
3. Moreover, the growing internationalisation of parliamentary
work is highlighting the inadequacy of the international legal framework
in which parliamentarians perform their duties outside their own
countries. While it is clear that diplomacy is an inherently sovereign
function, it is also true that parliaments have gradually become
involved in it, entailing a need to recognise and protect the relevant
activities on an international level. National parliamentarians
should therefore be afforded adequate safeguards in relation to
third countries when travelling abroad in the course of their duties
and be covered by a fixed, standardised framework of rights and privileges
so as to meet the requirements of legal certainty.
4. The Assembly therefore calls on the Committee of Ministers
to:
4.1. demand that member States
honour their commitments under the Statute of the Council of Europe
(ETS No. 1), the General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities
of the Council of Europe (ETS No. 2) and the protocol thereto (ETS
No. 10) and fully guarantee the immunity of members of the Parliamentary
Assembly and their free movement on the territory of member States;
4.2. urge member States to grant, by means of unilateral declarations:
4.2.1. members of the delegations holding observer or partner
for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly taking part
in sessions of the Assembly and meetings of its committees and,
in general, in activities organised by them, the privileges and
immunities afforded to members of the Parliamentary Assembly under
the General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities of the Council
of Europe and the protocol thereto;
4.2.2. national elected representatives from Council of Europe
member States travelling to or through their territory the immunities
afforded to the members of their countries’ own parliaments;
4.3. launch, prior to any standard-setting work and taking
account of current work by the United Nations International Law
Commission, a feasibility study on the creation of an international
status for parliamentarians and any related rights and obligations,
which could be carried out by the Council of Europe’s Committee
of Legal Advisers on Public International Law (CAHDI).