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PACE Adopts Resolution on Blacklisting of Lawmakers

© Sputnik / Vladimir Fedorenko  / Go to the mediabankPACE winter session
PACE winter session - Sputnik International
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The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution on blacklisting lawmakers and urged to keep them separate from the actions of states.

STRASBOURG (Sputnik) – The resolution prepared by former PACE member, Spanish lawmaker Arcadio Diaz Tejera, was passed with 66 to 6 votes.

The resolution was heavily watered down by the amendments proposed mostly by Ukrainian and Georgian delegates. They sought to make the resolution focused not on a general problem of hindering the work of parliamentarians, but specifying Georgian and Ukrainian tensions with Russia in the text.

Building of the Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, France - Sputnik International
PACE to Discuss Sanctions Against Parliamentarians
The resolution calls on the CoE member states to ensure the protection of members of parliaments, their legal certainty, as well as security. The main focus is on the fact that lawmakers have become the targets of blacklists, prohibiting them from entering certain states based on their nationality or political views.

"The Assembly believes that the restrictive measures targeting parliamentarians are not compatible with the very nature of parliamentarism, which requires relations to be maintained through dialogue," the resolution says. "It is afraid that the spread of individual sanctions involving the sharing of responsibility between states and individuals supporting the objectives of States is leading to an excessively moralistic trend in international law and the system of international liability, whereby, in the absence of any criminal liability, individual sanctions are supplementing the traditional sanctions targeting States."

Taking note of the existing blacklists for the lawmakers across Europe, the report to the resolution says parliamentarians are now "clearly held personally liable on account of state actions and decisions taken in fulfilling their duties, and nominative sanctions may be imposed on them by third States and international organizations through restrictive measures."

A PACE resolution in April 2014 deprived the Russian delegation of its voting rights, after Crimea became a part of Russia.

Russian lawmakers were barred from participating in PACE's three key bodies — its bureau, presidential committee and standing committee. The resolution curbing Russia’s rights in the Assembly was extended last year.

Last week, speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament Sergei Naryshkin said Russia would not take part in the winter PACE session and would not present its credentials for renewal. The decision also means Russia's credentials cannot be challenged in the body, which had previously imposed sanctions on the work of the Moscow delegates.

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