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Andres Herkel: Report on Azerbaijanâ€™s commitments is ready for debate in PACE April session

28 March 2007 17:09 (UTC +04:00)

â€œIf we take into consideration the reports on the commitments Azerbaijan undertook when joining the Council of Europe, we will see that the main demands were related to improvement of Electoral Code, formation of election commissions, amendments to the law on freedom of assembly,â€ Andres Herkel, co-rapporteur of the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly told the APAâ€™s Europe bureau exclusively. He mentioned that Azerbaijani government is cooperating with the Venice Commission on these issues.
â€œWe know that the government is cooperating with the Venice Commission with regard to these issues. But we considered it important to mention these issues in the report, and think that relevant laws should be adopted by the presidential elections,â€ the co-rapporteur said.
Andres Herkel said that there were a number of positive points during the discussion of the report.
â€œAmong them we can mention release of some political prisoners with the presidentâ€™s pardon decree, restoration of Azadliq newspaper. As to the problem of political prisoners, we are concerning ourselves with these people. It was decided that the problem should be solved through amnesty. I mentioned these problems while meeting with the representatives of the government and NGOs. I understand the proposal on appointing special rapporteur on political prisoners, but it would not be right to say that the working groupâ€™s activity is unproductive after the recent pardon decree. I always say if we see that the working group solves all problems, there will be no need for a special rapporteur. Besides, it is difficult to say whether a new rapporteur will be able to solve this problem,â€ he underlined.
Andres Herkel is satisfied that Azerbaijan has presented its remarks on the report in time.
â€œThe report is ready for discussion in April session. As to the remarks, they are explanations rather than facts. We did not include recent incident between Azerbaijani parliamentarians into the main part of the report. We just noted that such incident happened, and we will wait for Azerbaijanâ€™s explanation of it. The incident was not discussed in todayâ€™s debate,â€ he concluded. /APA/