Human rights in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and referendum in Belarus on
agenda of Venice Commission Plenary Session

Strasbourg, 06.10.2004 – Proposals for new human rights review mechanisms
for Kosovo, the constitutional situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the
forthcoming referendum in Belarus will be discussed at the 60th plenary
session of the Venice Commission (8 and 9 October, Scuola Grande di San
Giovanni Evangelista in Venice).

The Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional
issues, will also debate:

* Armenia’s law on public meetings,
* the Georgian draft law on restitution of housing and property to the
victims of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict,
* Ukrainian draft laws on the protection of indigenous people and on the
public prosecutor.

The Commission will look at two projects to amend the Armenian constitution.
Vice-Speaker of the National Assembly Tigran Torosyan will attend the
debate.
Lord Ashdown, the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, will
present the situation on the country.

Also attending the meeting are Deputy Special Representative of the UN
Secretary General for Police and Justice Jean-Christian Cady and Chief Legal
Adviser of KFOR Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Toussaint; Chief Justice of
England and Wales the Rt. Hon. Lord Woolf; President of the Constitutional
Court of the Republic of Korea Young-chul Yun and Deputy Chief Justice of
the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt Adel Omar Sherif. Ambassadors
Pietro Lonardo (Italy) and Johannes C. Landman (the Netherlands), Permanent
Representatives to the Council of Europe, will also be present.

All the adopted opinions are public and will be available on the Venice
Commission’s website shortly after the session:

Contacts in Venice during the session:
Gianni Buquicchio, mobile +39 338 347 85 76
Tatyana Mychelova, mobile + 33 676 72 0402

PRESS RELEASE
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