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1091st Plenary Meeting of the Permanent Council

Overall, the Opinion welcomes the Draft Amendments to the Law on Civil Service of Ukraine, which aim to ensure the autonomy of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights to recruit his/her staff members. At the same time, the Draft Amendments would benefit from some changes to protect the institutional independence of the Commissioner from any interference from external bodies and ensure a pluralist staff composition at all levels.

This preliminary joint opinion follows the reform of the Constitution, which was subject to two opinions of the Venice Commission in 2015. The new Constitution entered into force after being endorsed by voters in a referendum on 6 December 2015. According to its Article 210, a new Electoral Code has to enter into force by 1 June 2016.

1087th Plenary Meeting of the Permanent Council

Address by the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, H.E. Araz Azimov. Presentations by the Chairpersons of the Security Committee, the Economic and Environmental Committee, and the Human Dimension Committee. Ongoing aggression against Ukraine and violations of OSCE principles and commitments by the Russian Federation. Situation in Ukraine and the need to implement the Minsk agreements. Freedom of expression in the OSCE area. The death penalty in the United States of America. Reports of threats against members of the political opposition by the Head of the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation. Report on the activities of the Chairperson-in-Office. Farewell to the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the OSCE, Ambassador T. İldem. Launch of a ballistic missile in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on 7 February 2016. Parliamentary elections in Ireland, to be held on 26 February 2016.

The OSCE/ODIHR notes numerous positive features, which are overall in line with the provisions of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. At the same time, the Opinion provides a number of recommendations to fully implement Tunisia’s obligations under the Convention, in particular on necessary amendments to criminalize additional conducts and to ensure that general procedural rules do not exempt or unduly limit the extent of criminal responsibility or sanctions for the crime of enforced disappearance. The Tunisian drafters were also urged to exclude the possibility to impose death penalty for the crime of enforced disappearance and other crimes in general.

The present report summarizes the objective, results and activities of the project “Supporting the transfer of knowledge in war crimes cases among the national jurisdictions of the former Yugoslavia and with the ICTY” (War Crimes Justice Project Phase II), implemented by ODIHR under its Rule of Law program. ODIHR’s Rule of Law work focuses on the following areas: judicial independence, trial monitoring, criminal justice reform, administrative justice, electoral dispute resolution and war crimes justice. ODIHR draws its mandate in war crimes justice activities from commitments made by OSCE participating States to respect and ensure respect in all circumstances for international humanitarian law (IHL) (Helsinki 1992, Budapest 1994) and to hold individuals personally responsible for war crimes and violations of IHL (Stockholm 1992).

807th Plenary Meeting of the Forum for Security Co-operation