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Venice Commission Secretary: â€œWe hope for better cooperation with Azerbaijani Governmentâ€

27 May 2009 14:12 (UTC +04:00)

President of the Venice Commission Jan Helgesen, Secretary Gianni Buquicchio, spokesperson for the commission Tatiana Mishelova and heads of other departments attended the briefing.

36 opinions were made on separate countries during the reporting period. 7 texts covering common issues were adopted, 27 workshops and conferences were held during this period.

The activity of the Venice Commission mainly covered Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Montenegro, Palestine, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine and Finland. President of the Venice Commission Jan Helgesen said the recent cooperation with Azerbaijan concerned draft referendum act on amendments to the Constitution. He said the commissionâ€™s opinion covered it.

The president of the organization emphasized the importance of constitutional changes for the society and said the reaction of the government of Azerbaijan to the opinion of Venice Commission was not satisfactory. â€œWe understand the Azerbaijanâ€™s sensibility to our opinion in March, but we approached the issue from the view of European values and due to our duties sent a necessary messageâ€. Helgesen said he hoped for reviving of cooperation between Azerbaijan and the Venice Commission and they would be ready to work together in future if there were any proposal from the government of Azerbaijan or the Council of Europe to express opinion about the Azerbaijani legislation. â€œAzerbaijan needs to fulfill obligations arising from this cooperationâ€.

The Venice Commission Secretary Gianni Buquicchio said it was no Azerbaijani government, but the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to request the Commission to express opinion about the referendum. â€œWe had good cooperation with Azerbaijan in many fields, but Azerbaijanâ€™s position on the last opinion disappointed us and the number of points described in the opinion was not accepted. We have no political power to make the countries to accept our opinion. We express opinion and submit it to the country and other structures of the Council of Europe are monitoring that. However I hope for better cooperation with the government of Azerbaijan in future. We are expecting for proposal from the government of Azerbaijan about the coming of constitutional amendments into forceâ€.