Today.Az » Politics » Explanatory Memorandum to be added to PACE Monitoring Committee's report on Azerbaijan
28 April 2010 [15:56] - Today.Az
PACE Monitoring Committee co-rapporteurs Andres Herkel and Joseph Debono Grech offered at the meeting of the committee on Tuesday to add Explanatory Memorandum to their report.
The Monitoring Committee accepted the proposal. Andres Herkel told journalists that the main point in the Memorandum was constitutional reforms in Azerbaijan.
“As you know, the Venice Commission expressed negative opinion on this issue. Moreover, the document covers the forthcoming parliamentary elections, pre-election situation in the country, Electoral Code, problems concerning freedom of speech, release of the imprisoned journalists. We are glad that a week ago the European Court of Human Rights passed a judgment on releasing Eynulla Fatullayev and we hope that the Azerbaijani side will take adequate steps.
With this we will be able to assess positively the release of journalists before the elections in our report. Speaking about the freedom of speech and journalists, of course, we are attentively observing the case of two young bloggers. This memorandum will also cover the outcomes of our visit to Azerbaijan, including Nakhchivan and Ganja,” he said.
According to Andres Herkel, the memorandum that will be added to the report will be discussed and confirmed at the meeting of the Monitoring Committee in Paris on May 18.
“Our aim is to release the report at the plenary meeting of PACE June session. This is not a large report about the country, it is a common report about the functioning of democratic institutions before the elections in Azerbaijan.
But the Explanatory Memorandum will not be a short document, it will cover a number of issues. As regards our visit to Azerbaijan, we will not need to visit unless something extraordinary happens by June, because we have enough materials to prepare the report,” he said.
/APA/
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