Amendment No. 5 | Doc. 13079 | 21 January 2013

The follow-up to the issue of political prisoners in Azerbaijan

Signatories: Mr Michael McNAMARA, Ireland, SOC ; Mr Jean-Pierre MICHEL, France, SOC ; Mr Stefan SCHENNACH, Austria, SOC ; Mr Björn von SYDOW, Sweden, SOC ; Lord John E. TOMLINSON, United Kingdom, SOC

Origin - 2013 - First part-session

In the draft resolution, after paragraph 10, insert the following paragraph:

"The Assembly notes that, in a large number of these cases, the Azerbaijani courts have clearly violated fundamental fair trial rules. These transgressions include failures to react to alleged ill-treatment of accused persons during pre-trial detention, to hear witnesses called by the defence, to respect the presumption of innocence, as well as discriminatory, excessively harsh, treatment of accused persons linked to opposition groups."

Explanatory note

- to bring back a paragraph lost in the voting paragraph by paragraph in the committee meeting of June;

- this paragraph includes a general summary (not referring to individual cases) of the main types of violations against the rule of law in the cases analysed by the Rapporteur. These are systemic problems often pinpointed by the ECHR.