Leonid Slutskiy
Slutsky
Leonid Eduardovich
, Chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on International Affairs, believes that the partial lifting of the sanctions clauses in the regulations of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) does not eliminate problems in relations with Russia and risk of discrimination against national delegations still remains.
Earlier it was reported that the PACE Committee on Rules of Procedure had opposed depriving national delegations of the right to participate in the election of the organization’s Secretary General, judges of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.
“A partial prohibition on depriving of a right to vote in order to ensure the legitimacy of the elections of Council of Europe officials and judges of the ECHR is a half-measure. Even if the Assembly votes in favor of such amendments, they do not remove the existing problem of discrimination of national delegations, which shall be eradicated as Russia insisted,” said Slutskiy.
According to him, if the possibility of depriving national delegations of the right to vote in PACE maintains the principles of parliamentarism will be violated. “Sanctions are a road to nowhere, it is a violation of the rights of representatives of entire states in the oldest European organization. In general, this is a punitive mechanism,” said Slutskiy.
He reminded that because of such terms Russia refused to work in Strasbourg. “The state of things remains the same. And therefore, our delegation is unlikely to return to PACE in 2019,” the head of the committee added.
