2009 ORDINARY SESSION

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(Third part)

REPORT

Twenty-first Sitting

Tuesday 23 June 2009 at 3 p.m.

Mr HERKEL (Estonia). – The report is exceptional in many ways. I should like to use my time to refresh everyone’s memory a little. Previous challenges to delegations’ credentials were based on serious and systematic violations of human rights, the principles of democracy or the rule of law. Today’s consideration of credentials is procedural and therefore exceptional.

A challenge was made to the credentials of the Ukrainian delegation in 1998 because of a failure to respect a moratorium on the death penalty. There was a challenge to the Russian Federation delegation’s credentials for human rights abuses in Chechnya in 2000. There was a challenge to the credentials of the delegation of Azerbaijan for undemocratic parliamentary elections in 2006, and there was another challenge to the credentials of the Russian delegation after the invasion of Georgia last year. Only once, in the case of the disaster in Chechnya, were the credentials of the Russian delegation really challenged. That was the right decision.

      There is a big difference between military aggression towards another member state and a stolen election. There is an even bigger difference between the invasion of Georgia and Ukraine’s failure to present a list of candidates. Even including such a topic in our schedule seems disproportionate and inappropriate. Yes, there is one serious argument that the resolution was a driving force to achieve dialogue, and I agree that one resolves problems through dialogue. However, the method that we are using is disproportionate.

      I would like to finish with a small fantasy. In hundreds of years’ time, future historians conducting research into the circumstances of or the reasons for challenging the credentials of delegations to the Council of Europe will find today’s topic a curiosity.

Terviktekst: http://assembly.coe.int/