Off the wire
• Azerbaija-Armenia clashes enter into third day with no signs of abating  • Over 400 Palestinian children detained in Israeli jails: Palestinian Prisoners Club  • Rwanda's gorilla naming event pushes conservation, tourism  • St. Petersburg to host 18th theater festival  • Former Houston Rockets center Yao Ming in basketball Hall of Fame  • Kenya secures 625mln USD to scale up electricity access  • British construction PMI stands at 54.2 in March, unchanged from last month  • Armenia supports peaceful settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: President  • Volvo Cars posts first quarter sales hike  • Paris Marathon 2016 sets new participation record  
You are here: 　 Home

Council of Europe chief visits Poland due to Constitutional Tribunal situation

Xinhua, April 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland said on Monday, during the first day of his visit to Warsaw, that Poland's Constitutional Tribunal is currently "paralyzed", calling for a parliamentary solution to find a way out of the crisis.

During a press conference, Jagland said that the Polish Constitutional Tribunal is "paralyzed" and that best way out of this situation is parliamentary solution, adding that Poland currently has no system to monitor whether the law is being enforced.

Unless this situation is solved, he said, it would result in complaints submitted to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

He added that during the talks with Polish authorities, he was informed that steps for searching the solution have already been taken.

On Monday, Jagland began a two-day series of meeting with Polish authorities related to the recent situation concerning the Constitutional Tribunal and media law in Poland.

His visit is also connected to the opinion made by Venice Commission in the middle of March, criticizing recent changes in the Polish law and saying that "weakening of the Constitutional Tribunal efficiency would undermine the democracy, human rights and rule of justice" in Poland.

The Council of Europe chief also expressed his doubts about the changes into the media law.

The series of talks include meetings with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro, Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Glinski, and the Ombudsman Adam Bodnar.

Polish deputy Foreign Minister Aleksander Stepkowski said that Jagland appreciated the fact that the Venice Commission's opinion has been given to the Sejm, Lower House of the Polish parliament.

The minister of justice, Ziobro, added that the talks were held in a friendly atmosphere, though certain matters are perceived from different points of view.

However, he added, this issue should be solved in the spirit of dialogue and compromise, and appealed to the opposition parties for common effort.

On March 11, The Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe, urged Poland to respect a ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal, made on March 9, in which a series of controversial changes introduced by the ruling party Law and Justice were rejected.

The court's ruling has not been published by the Polish Prime Minister, Beata Szydlo, who claims its decision is invalid.

The changes into constitutional tribunal law in Poland were passed by the Polish parliament on Dec. 22, 2015, adopted by the senate without any amendments suggested by the opposition and subsequently signed by the president.

The amendment requires the court to adopt most of its rulings by a two-third margin, making it reliant on the government and is observed to be bad for the political equilibrium of the country, as well as endowing the Ministry of the Treasury with the power to nominate the directors of public television and radio broadcasters. Endit