COUNCIL OF EUROPE SET TO ENSURE FAIR AZERI PRESIDENTIAL POLL
Turan news agency
5 Feb 07
Baku, 5 February: The PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe] spring session will discuss how Azerbaijan is implementing
its commitments to the Council of Europe. In turn, the Council of
Europe continues to cooperate with Azerbaijan to achieve "full-scale
democracy", Director General for Political Affairs [of the Council
of Europe] Jean-Louis Laurens has told journalists [in Baku].
In particular, we have to work on reforming the Electoral Code. The
point is about improving the principle of forming electoral
commissions, organizing elections and voting, counting votes and
procedures for examining complaints.
Moreover, freedom of speech and expression and equal access of
candidates to the media, including TV, should be maintained during
elections.
The Council of Europe is now monitoring the Armenian press due to the
forthcoming parliamentary election in May 2007 in this country. Laurens
supposes that this kind of monitoring will be conducted in Azerbaijan
as well during the 2008 presidential election campaign.
Freedom of speech and the press should be ensured not only during
the election period. Laurens spoke about cases of pressure on the
independent press in Azerbaijan. The Council of Europe insists that
restraining measures for libel be withdrawn from the Criminal Code.
The Council of Europe director general for political affairs noted
a "weakness" of the local government in Azerbaijan. The Council of
Europe continues its work to improve Azerbaijan’s judicial system. In
particular, the work to strengthen lawyers’ status and improve the
situation in prisons is on plate.
Asked about the possibility of restoring the post of rapporteur
on political prisoners, Laurens said that the PACE dealt with the
issue. At the same time, he said that he studied the problem formerly
and hundreds of people were set free as a result of cooperation between
Council of Europe experts and the Azerbaijani authorities. However,
the mandate of experts was not extended as Azerbaijan had ratified
the European Convention on Human Rights and Azerbaijani citizens got
a chance to appeal to the European Court.
"As far as I know, problems in this sphere have not been completely
resolved yet," Laurens said.
He said that on the one hand, the Council of Europe assists Azerbaijan
in holding democratic reforms. On the other hand, at the initiative
of PACE, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, and at
the request of the organization’s secretariat, monitoring is being
conducted to control the implementation of commitments.