Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Parliamentary assembly

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, a 46 nation international organisation dedicated to upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Assembly is made up of 306 members drawn from the national parliaments of the Council of Europe's member states, and meets four times a year for week long plenary sessions in Strasbourg. It is one of the two statutory bodies of the Council of Europe, along with the Committee of Ministers, the executive body representing governments, with which it holds an ongoing dialogue. However, it is the Assembly which is usually regarded as the "motor" of the organisation, holding governments to account on human rights issues, pressing states to maintain democratic standards, proposing fresh ideas and generating the momentum for reform. The Assembly held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, embodying at that time the hopes of many Europeans who, in the aftermath of World War II, saw European unity as the best way of preventing a return to the devastation of war, a "safety net" to prevent gross human rights violations such as the horrors of The Holocaust, and a democratic bulwark against tyranny. Among the Assembly's main achievements are:
ending the death penalty in Europe by requiring new member states to stop all executions;
making possible, and providing a blueprint for, the European Convention on Human Rights;
high profile reports exposing violations of human rights in Council of Europe member states;
assisting former Soviet countries to embrace democracy after 1989;
inspiring and helping to shape many progressive new national laws; and
helping member states to overcome conflict or reach consensus on divisive political or social issues. adopting the Flag of Europe and the Anthem of Europe, both later taken up by the European Union.

Judges of the European Court of Human Rights are elected by PACE from a list of three candidates nominated by each member state which has ratified the European Convention on Human Rights. A 20 member committee made up of parliamentarians with legal experience – meeting in camera – interviews all candidates for judge on the Court and assesses their CVs before making recommendations to the full Assembly, which elects one judge from each shortlist in a secret vote. Judges are elected for a period of nine years and may not be re elected. Although the European Convention does not, in itself, require member states to present a multi sex shortlist of potential appointees, in a 2004 resolution PACE decided that it "will not consider lists of candidates where the list does not include at least one candidate of each sex" unless there are exceptional circumstances. As a result, around one third of the current bench of 46 judges are women, making the Court a leader among international courts on gender balance.

At its very first meeting, in the summer of 1949, the Parliamentary Assembly adopted the essential blueprint of what became the European Convention on Human Rights, selecting which rights should be protected and defining the outline of the judicial mechanism to enforce them. Its detailed proposal, with some changes, was eventually adopted by the Council of Europe's ministerial body, and entered into force in 1953. Today, seventy years later, the European Court of Human Rights – given shape and form during the Assembly's historic post war debates – is regarded as a global standard bearer for justice, protecting the rights of citizens in 46 European nations and beyond, and paving the way for the gradual convergence of human rights laws and practice across the continent. The Assembly continues to elect the judges of the Court.

The Assembly was at the origin of both the Flag of Europe, the twelve yellow stars on a blue background, and the Anthem of Europe, an arrangement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ode to Joy. Having been proposed by the Assembly, both were adopted firstly by the Council of Europe, and several years later by the European Union. Both are now known worldwide as symbols of Europe. Various proposals for a flag were submitted to the Council of Europe in the early 1950s and on 25 September 1953 the Assembly officially adopted a version with fifteen stars, which represented the number of Council of Europe member states at the time. However "a difficulty arose" in the Council of Europe's ministerial body over the number of stars after West Germany objected that one was for the Saarland region, which was then under French control and did not rejoin Germany until 1957. It would have agreed to fourteen stars, but this was in turn unacceptable to France. Two years later, after further consultations, the twelve star version was unanimously approved by both bodies of the Council of Europe, with twelve being regarded as a symbol of perfection, and no longer related to the number of states in the organisation. The institutions of the European Union began using the flag in 1986. After many early discussions, "Ode to Joy" was proposed by PACE as an official European anthem on 8 July 1971, and formally adopted by the Council of Europe in 1972, before being taken up by the EU in 1985.

In 1973 Swedish PACE member Astrid Bergegren first put forward a motion inviting member states to abolish the death penalty. Momentum built in the following years, and by 1980 the Assembly was calling on Europe's parliaments to abolish it, and insisting that the "right to life" included in the European Convention on Human Rights implied a ban on state killing. In 1989 the Assembly took the decision to make ending executions a condition of Council of Europe membership just before a wave of central and eastern European nations joined the organisation. Today, the death penalty has been abolished in law in all 46 member states in peacetime, though some continue to allow it in time of war. Though rare calls are occasionally heard for its reintroduction, abolition continent wide is now regarded as a major achievement of the Council of Europe as a whole, and it now joins others in pressing for abolition worldwide.

Over the decades, the Assembly has been at the forefront of supporting democratic change in successive waves of European nations at key moments in their history, negotiating their entry into the Council of Europe "club of democracies" (as the Assembly has a veto on any new member joining the organisation, it has used this power to negotiate with applicant countries the conditions on which they join). In the 1950s it led the way in embracing recently defeated Germany, in the 1960s it took a strong stand during the Greek crisis, and in the 1970s it welcomed post Franco Spain and Portugal into the democratic fold. Above all, it played a key role after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, creating a path towards membership for former Communist countries with its "Special Guest status", paving the way for the historic reconciliation of European nations under one roof.

In two reports for the Assembly in 2006 and 2007, Swiss Senator and former Prosecutor Dick Marty revealed convincing evidence that terror suspects were being transported to, held and tortured in CIA run "secret prisons" on European soil. The evidence in his first report in 2006 – gathered with the help of investigative journalists and plane spotters among others – suggested that a number of Council of Europe member states had permitted CIA "rendition flights" across their airspace, enabling the secret transfer of terror suspects without any legal rights. In a second report in 2007, Marty showed how two member states – Poland and Romania – had allowed "secret prisons" to be established on their territory, where torture took place. His main conclusions – subsequently confirmed in a series of rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, as well as a comprehensive US Senate report – threw the first real light on a dark chapter in US and European history in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, kicked off a series of national probes, and helped to make torture on European soil less likely.

In April 2014, after the Russian parliament's backing for the annexation of Crimea and Russo Ukrainian War, the Assembly decided to suspend the Russian delegation's voting rights as well as the right of Russian members to be represented in the Assembly's leading bodies and to participate in election observation missions. However, the Russian delegation remained members of the Assembly. The sanction applied throughout the remainder of the 2014 session and was renewed for a full year in January 2015, lapsing in January 2016. The sanction applied only to Russian parliamentarians in PACE, the Council of Europe's parliamentary body, and Russia continued to be a full member of the organisation as a whole. In response, the Russian parliamentary delegation suspended its co operation with PACE in June 2014, and in January 2016 – despite the lapsing of the sanctions – the Russian parliament decided not to submit its delegation's credentials for ratification, effectively leaving its seats empty. It did so again in January 2017, January 2018 and January 2019. On 25 June 2019, after an eight hour debate which ended in the small hours, the Assembly voted to change its rules, to make clear that its members should always have the right "to vote, to speak and to be represented", acceding to a key Russian demand and paving the way for the return of a Russian parliamentary delegation. Within hours the Russian parliament had presented the credentials of a new delegation, which – despite being challenged – were approved without any sanction by a vote of 116 in favour, 62 against and 15 abstentions. As a result, the Russian delegation which included Pyotr Olegovich Tolstoy as its head, returned to PACE with its full rights after a gap of five years. In response, the Ukrainian delegation protested before the Assembly, and announced Ukraine would leave the institution. Ukraine returned to PACE in January 2020.

The European Parliament has had criticism over its prodigality and for being too complacent with conflicts of interest. Its refusal to become full member of the GRECO like all its member states is also a matter of criticism. According to the report, said member states also hire lobbyists to fend off criticism of their human rights records. PACE members have been implicated in corruption scandals relating to the Qatari and Azerbaijani governments. Qatargate is an ongoing scandal, involving allegations that PACE officials, lobbyists and their families have been influenced by the governments of Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania, engaging in corruption, money laundering, and organized crime. Multiple PACE officials have been implicated in a money laundering scheme organized by the Azerbaijani government. In exchange for (A) whiteashing Azerbaijan's poor human rights record and (B) lobbying for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, European politicians were paid off and received lavish gifts and paid trips. In 2018, an independent investigation found "strong suspicions of corruptive conduct involving members of the Assembly" and named a multiple members as having breached the Assembly's Code of Conduct. or by excluding them from the Assembly's premises for life. Following the flight of Nagorno Karabakh Armenians in 2023, PACE adopted a motion which stated that "it regrets the fact that Members of the European Parliament have accepted and failed to declare trips to Azerbaijan, visits to the Nagorno Karabakh region and luxury hotel stays that were organised and paid for by Azerbaijani officials."

In October 2013, following a motion by the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development a year prior, the Assembly passed a resolution and an accompanying recommendation on children's right to physical integrity. These documents argued that while PACE had addressed forms of child abuse such as sexual violence and domestic violence, it was also necessary to address what they called "non medically justified violations of children's physical integrity which may have a long lasting impact on their lives". They called for a ban on the most harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation, while also calling for increased dialogue on other procedures they viewed as harmful, such as infant male circumcision, intersex medical interventions, and body piercings. While none of the above documents called for an outright ban on male circumcision, they did call for the procedure to be regulated and debated, and an accompanying report referred to the practice as a "human rights violation". This condemnation received criticism from religious groups and figures, such as Shimon Peres, the president of Israel at the time, as well as the Anti Defamation League, which argued that circumcision was an accepted medical procedure and that the resolution interfered with religious freedom and was anti Semitic. In response to these criticisms, Liliane Maury Pasquier of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development wrote an op ed in The Washington Post arguing that medical evidence against circumcision was presented in the Assembly's hearings and that the child's right to physical integrity overrode the parents' right to religious freedom. This op ed was further criticized by the Anti Defamation League. In 2015, PACE passed a resolution on religious freedom and tolerance that referenced its previous resolution on circumcision and reiterated its view that the procedure should only be performed under appropriate medical conditions. Though some outlets reported that PACE had retracted its anti circumcision stance, PACE clarified that it had neither cancelled nor replaced the old resolution and that they had never called for infant circumcision to be banned in the first place.

Although the Council of Europe is a human rights watchdog and a guardian against discrimination, it is widely regarded as becoming increasingly divided on moral issues because its membership includes mainly Muslim countries (Turkey and Azerbaijan) as well as Eastern European countries, among them Russia, where social conservatism is strong. In 2007, this became evident when the Parliamentary Assembly voted on a report compiled by Anne Brasseur of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party on the rise of Christian creationism, bolstered by right wing and populist parties in Eastern Europe. At the time of its launch, the archive comprised 263 speeches delivered over a 70 year period by some 216 Presidents, Prime Ministers, monarchs and religious leaders from 45 countries, but it continues to expand, as new speeches are added every few months. Some very early speeches by individuals considered to be "founding figures" of the European institutions, even if they were not heads of state or government at the time, are also included (such as those by Winston Churchill and Robert Schuman). Addresses by eight monarchs appear in the list (such as King Juan Carlos I of Spain, King Albert II of Belgium and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg) as well as the speeches given by religious figures (such as Pope John Paul II) and several leaders from countries in the Middle East and North Africa (such as Shimon Peres, Yasser Arafat, Hosni Mubarak, Léopold Sédar Senghor or King Hussein of Jordan). The full text of the speeches is given in both English and French, regardless of the original language used. The archive is searchable by country, by name, and chronologically.

The official languages of the Council of Europe are English and French, but the Assembly also uses German and Italian as working languages. Each parliamentarian has separate earphones and a desk on which they are able to select the language which they would like to listen to. When foreign guests wish to address the Assembly in languages other than its working languages, they are invited to bring their own interpreters.

In January 2021, the Assembly elected Despina Chatzivassiliou Tsovilis as Secretary General of the Assembly, serving a five year term beginning in March 2021. She heads an 80 strong multi national secretariat based in Strasbourg, and is the first woman to hold the post since the Assembly's creation in 1949, as well as the first person of Greek nationality.