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REP OF VENICE COMMISSION IN BAKU

Politics Materials 1 October 2005 14:47 (UTC +04:00)

Sergey Kuznetsov, an employee of the Department for Elections and Referendum of the Council of Europe Venice Commission is on an official visit to Baku, the VC secretariat announces. Kuznetsov plans to hold meetings with officials and discuss the pre-elections campaign in Azerbaijan.

Earlier Kuznetsov told Trend that by September the VC would take a final resolution on Azerbaijan and present to the country’s leadership.

The Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR publicized a draft final opinion on amendments to the Elections Code of Azerbaijan early September.

The Venice Commission noted that the amendments were insufficient to develop the necessary public confidence in the electoral legislation and practice in Azerbaijan. Along with mostly technical changes, only a limited number of substantial amendments have been adopted in response to the 2003 and 2004 joint recommendations and 2005 Interim opinion of OSCE/ODIHR and the Venice Commission.

Although some of the amendments are in line with international standards and a number of them even follow previous recommendations by the Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR, this cannot lead to the conclusion that the Election Code of Azerbaijan is satisfactory after the amendments of 26 June 2005.

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