The participants in the 64th plenary session of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (CE Venice Commission) adopted a draft final opinion on amendments to the Elections Code of Azerbaijan, the Venice Commission and the OSCE/ODIHR, Trend reports quoting a representative of the Constitution Law Department of the VC Secretariat, Tatyana Mychelova.
She noted that some amendments were injected in the draft final opinion. Noting that she did not personally participate in the hearings on Azerbaijan, she avoided to give detail information on the issue. “The resolution will be disclosed in the official website of the VC shortly,” Mychelova underscored.
The draft opinion was developed on the basis of comments by Rumen Maleev, OSCE/ODIHR, Expert, Bulgaria, Georg Nolte, Venice Commission, Substitute Member, Germany, and Peter Paczolay, Venice Commission, Substitute Member, Hungary.
The OSCE/ODIHR and the Venice Commission are of the opinion that, since the remaining recommendations of 2003, 2004 and 2005 have not been duly taken into consideration, the examined law does not fully meet OSCE commitments and Council of Europe standards for democratic elections, the document noted.
The 64th session of the VC was held in the Scuola Grande de San Giovanni Evangelista Palace in Venice, Italy. Along with the issue on the Elections Code of Azerbaijan the gathering also discussed the constitutional reforms in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, reforms in the legal system in Serbia and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, draft laws on national minorities and freedom of religion in Romania, elections law in Armenia, cancellation of licenses of some policemen n\in Bosnia and Herzegovina.