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ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY,

MR MEVLÜT ÇAVUŞOĞLU ASSEMBLY AT THE 85th PLENARY SESSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

FOR DEMOCRACY THROUGH LAW

(VENICE COMMISSION)

VENICE, 17 DECEMBER 2010, around 12 a.m.

President,

Honourable members of the Venice Commission,

Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for this opportunity to address your Commission today.

The last two years have been full of important events for the Council of Europe. In 2009, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of our Organisation. In 2010, we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the European Convention of Human Rights. The Venice Commission also has its own celebration this year: in June, we marked the 20th anniversary of the establishment of your Commission and I had the privilege of attending this ceremony personally. In this context, allow me first, President, to congratulate you and your colleagues once again and wish you and your Commission many more years of fruitful, challenging and gratifying work.

Indeed, over twenty years of intensive and fruitful work the Venice Commission built up its strength and now brings together 57 states, 7 observer states, 1 associate member and 3 special status members, covering a geographic area which goes far beyond the borders of our European continent. Your Commission has built itself an international reputation, by providing impartial, high-quality legal advice on a wide range of issues. Today, a positive opinion by the Venice Commission of a constitution or a law is seen as a quality “label” of compliance with highest democratic standards.

Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

As we all know, today, we are trying to find ways of making our Organisation more pro-active and more politically relevant, impact-oriented and effective in achieving its goals. The co-operation between the Assembly and the Venice Commission fully satisfies these requirements, because our respective roles are very complementary.

While our task as elected politicians is to set the context and indicate the political direction for our Organisation’s work, the Venice Commission’s role is to assist its members in translating political objectives into concrete legal instruments. In order to be relevant, our political messages have to be strengthened by standards and guidelines, based on the best European practices. This is what your Commission is doing! It is evident that complementary actions at political and legal level strengthen the impact of the Council of Europe. And there are already many examples where co-operation between the Assembly and the Venice Commission have made our action more visible and helped us achieve concrete results.

Allow me, President, to give just three examples. The most visible and recurrent instance of our co-operation is that of election observation. Already in 2002, your Commission adopted the Code of Good Practice on Electoral Matters, acting upon a recommendation by the Parliamentary Assembly. Most recently, also on the basis of a Resolution adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly, your Commission prepared the Code of Good Practice in the field of Political Parties. And, of course, I should not forget to mention that it has become a well established practice that the Venice Commission supports the Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committees observing elections in member states, by providing background information on election legislation as well as putting its experts at our disposal for the most difficult election observation missions.

The second area where the Venice Commission and the Assembly co-operate most closely is that of the monitoring of member states’ obligations and commitments. I was a co-rapporteur of the Monitoring Committee myself and I know well how useful the Venice Commission’s opinions are for the preparation of our reports. An impartial and comprehensive assessment of the compatibility of draft laws with our legal standards enables the co-rapporteurs to make an informed political assessment of the compliance of reform processes in member states with the aims and principles of our Organisation.

The third area where our co-operation is bringing concrete results is standard-setting. Further to our Resolutions, the Venice Commission has undertaken a number of sectoral studies summarising the existing European acquis, as well as suggesting proposals for its further development, on the basis of a comparative analysis of the national practices. As a concrete example, this afternoon, your Commission will be examining a sectoral study on the “European standards as regards the independence of the judicial system – Part II Prosecutors”, which was prepared at the request of the Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. I am sure this study will be extremely useful for our future work.

Dear colleagues,

As you see, our co-operation is strong and fruitful. That said, there is always room to enhance it even further. This morning, together with the members of the Presidential Committee, I met the President of the Venice Commission and the members of the Enlarged Bureau, in order to review our ongoing co-operation and plan joint actions for the future. This is one of a series of such meeting and I would like to thank the President and the members of the Enlarged Bureau for their frank and constructive approach. Our discussion was concrete, fruitful and action-oriented, as usual.

Allow me, President, to briefly highlight a couple of ideas which emerged from our discussion.

Firstly, we agreed to continue working closely in those member states presenting delicate political and institutional situations. Again, let me mention three concrete initiatives:

As regards Bosnia and Herzegovina, in its recent Resolution on the urgent need of a constitutional reform, the Assembly called upon the authorities to establish a serious institutionalised process for the preparation of a comprehensive package of constitutional amendments. Of course, this process should be locally-driven, in order to ensure that all key political stakeholders engage in it fully. However, we consider that the Venice Commission should provide legal advice to the domestic experts, on the basis of its previous recommendations. The compliance of constitutional amendments with the recommendations of the Venice Commission will be a concrete benchmark for the co-rapporteurs of the Monitoring Committee.

As regards Moldova, it is unfortunate that the failure of the referendum on the revision of article 78 of the Constitution did not resolve the constitutional deadlock over the election of the President. According to the results of the recent parliamentary elections, no party alone has secured the majority necessary to elect the President. It is therefore essential that all parliamentary political forces should engage in meaningful negotiations in order to either find a majority necessary to elect the Head of State or amend the Constitution in Parliament. The Assembly will pursue its mediating efforts between the different political forces in order to help them find a solution. However, we would also like to be supported by the legal experts of the Venice Commission in this process. I trust that by acting together we can help the key political stakeholders in Moldova make the right choice and put the democratic process back on the normal track.

As regards Ukraine, we are grateful to the Venice Commission for providing us with an opinion on the constitutional situation in this country, following the recent decision of the Constitutional Court. The Assembly co-rapporteurs on Ukraine will take this opinion fully into account in their future work.

Secondly, we discussed this morning how our two institutions could co-operate better in bringing non-member states closer to the Council of Europe and to our standards. As you know, the Assembly recently established a new special status, called “Partnership for Democracy”, for Parliaments of neighbouring non-member states. We have received official requests for this status from the Parliaments of Morocco and Palestine and the Parliament of Kazakhstan is currently considering to make a request. The Kingdom of Morocco is a full member your Commission, Kazakhstan sits on the Commission as an observer and the Palestinian National Authority was granted a special co-operation status. I am sure that the information and documents that your Commission could provide us with in this respect will be extremely useful for the assessment of the applications by the Political Affairs Committee.

Dear colleagues, friends,

I wish you all a very successful and fruitful meeting and look forward to answering any questions you may want to raise in the exchange of views. Thank you very much for your attention.