PACE Urges Unlimited Access of Monitoring Bodies in Its Member States
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Friday, October 12
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution on Thursday which urges its member states to ensure unlimited access of the Council of Europe and United Nations monitoring bodies in its member states, including Georgia.
PACE also calls upon the member states to take measures to help the bodies have an access in the breakaway territories.
PACE says that they welcomed instances where these monitoring bodies have obtained access to “grey zones”.
The “grey zones” refer to the territories of states that are under the control of de facto authorities, citing in particular visits by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) to Transnistria and Abkhazia.
“However, the activities of human rights monitoring bodies regarding territories under the control of de facto authorities do not constitute recognition of those authorities’ legitimacy under international law, the parliamentarians stressed.
“In a resolution adopted, on the basis of the report by Frank Schwabe (Germany, SOC), PACE recommended an approach whereby States are presumed to consent to visits by human rights monitoring bodies in cases where there is a reason to believe that there are serious human rights violations,” PACE statement reads.
PACE called on the Committee of Ministers to hold an urgent discussion whenever a Council of Europe human rights monitoring body is denied access, or allowed access only on conditions that are politically unacceptable or incompatible with the body’s mandate.
The international mechanisms have been allowed in the Georgian occupied territories in the wake of the Russia-Georgia war.
The European Union Monitoring Mission is the only which monitors situation near the occupied areas.
