PRESS RELEASE
Parliamentary Assembly Communication Unit
Ref: 128a07
Tel: +33 3 88 41 31 93
Fax :+33 3 90 21 41 34
pace.com@coe.int
internet:
PACE parliamentarians visit the United Kingdom to assess alleged
electoral fraud
Strasbourg, 23.02.2007 – Two members of the Monitoring Committee of the
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) will be traveling to
Brighton and London 26 and 27 February 2007 to look into allegations of
irregularities involving postal and absentee votes in the United
Kingdom.
Former German Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin (SOC) and Polish
Senator Urszula Gacek (EPP/CD) will after the visit report to the
Monitoring Committee, which will then assess whether or not electoral
fraud merits the opening of the Assembly’s "monitoring procedure".
The two parliamentarians will visit Brighton, where a Conference of the
Association of Electoral Administrators will be taking place, and
London. Meetings are scheduled notably with MP’s of the House of
Commons, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of
Constitutional Affairs, and representatives of the Electoral Commission,
the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Committee of Standards in
Public Life, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Electoral Reform
Society.
The visit is in response to a motion for a resolution signed by 18
members of the Assembly, which said there was "a growing body of
evidence that widespread absent vote fraud is taking place in the United
Kingdom" and pointing out that holding free elections is an obligation
of all Council of Europe member states. The motion calls for the opening
of a monitoring procedure, which involves ongoing dialogue with a member
state on the fulfillment of its statutory obligations (democracy, rule
of law and respect for human rights), as well as periodic plenary
debates on progress made in honoring its Council of Europe commitments.
Ten of the Council of Europe’s 46 member states – Albania, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Monaco, Russia,
Serbia and Ukraine – are currently subject to monitoring, which is
obligatory for all states when they join the Organisation. A request to
open a monitoring procedure for Italy, in connection with the media
situation there, is also currently being evaluated.
Motion for a resolution: application to initiate a monitoring procedure
to investigate electoral fraud in the United Kingdom
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Contact : Francesc Ferrer, PACE Communication Unit,
tel +33 3 88 41 32 50 ; mobile +33 6 30 49 68 22,
francesc.ferrer@coe.int
The Parliamentary Assembly brings together 315 members from the national
parliaments of the 46 member states.
President: René van der Linden (Netherlands, EPP/CD); Secretary
General of the Assembly: Mateo Sorinas.
Political Groups: SOC (Socialist Group); EPP/CD (Group of the European
People’s Party); ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe);
EDG (European Democratic Group); UEL (Group of the Unified European
Left).