Venice Commission :: Council of Europe

The Commission proceeded to a preliminary consideration of the comments on the Constitution of Bulgaria and was informed on the progress made in the evaluation of the Constitution of Finland in view of its eventual revision.

The Commission was also briefed on the recent constitutional developments in Kyrgyzstan, on the draft Constitution of Montenegro and on the implementation of the new Constitution of Serbia.

Another point concerned the preparation of a new Constitution for Turkey: Professor Ergun Özbudun, the chairman of the academic commission drafting the new Constitution, informed the members of the Venice Commission on this matter.

Points submitted for adoption:
- an amicus curiae opinion on the compatibility of certain provisions of the Statute of the International Criminal Court with the Constitution of Moldova;
- a draft Opinion on the draft amendments to the Law on the status of the People’s deputy in Ukraine.

Mr René van der Linden, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Mr Ernst Hirsch Ballin, Minister of Justice of the Netherlands, addressed the Commission.

For the first time, an exchange of views took place between the Union of Arab Constitutional Courts and Councils (UACCC) and the Venice Commission on the topic of “Limits of Constitutional Control” – in 2007, Morocco and Algeria became new member States of the Venice Commission.

All the adopted texts are public and will be available on the Commission’s website.

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The Commission paid a tribute to the memory of its President, Mr Antonio La Pergola, who passed away on 18 July 2007.
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