Tuesday, Russia had taken the lead and announced its departure from the guaranteeing organization of the rule of law on the continent, to which it had joined twenty-six years ago. Consequence of this decision, Moscow will also come out of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Le Monde with AFP
It’s the end of twenty-six years of accession. The Council of Europe, guarantor of the rule of law on the continent, officially excluded Russia, Wednesday, March 16, because of its war launched against Ukraine.
The exclusion was decided on Wednesday morning during an “extraordinary meeting” of the Committee of Ministers, the Executive Body of the Organization, the day after an advisory vote of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of the Council. Europe (PACE).
A few hours before the ballot, Moscow had taken the lead by officially announcing that he snapped the Gate of the Council of Europe, an organization based in Strasbourg and to which the country had joined in 1996. It was in any case anyway. Suspended from February 25, the day after his offensive in Ukraine.
As a result of this expulsion: Russia will come out of the European Convention on Human Rights, depriving its 145 million citizens of access to the European Court of Human Rights. The latter announced in the wake that it suspended “the examination of all the requests” against Russia, “while waiting to examine the legal consequences of this resolution on the work of the Court”.
The flag of the Russian Federation was descended to 13:30 his mast before the Council, where the flags of the other other Member States do now float.
The implications defined later.
The Committee of Ministers will subsequently define the concrete implications of this exclusion, to the resumption of its meetings on this subject next week, said the organization.
“It’s sad to have to exclude a country after twenty-six years of accession,” said PACE President Tiny Kox, in a separate statement. “But it was necessary and I’m glad we dared to do it.”
It is only the second time the institution faces such a scenario: Greece had proceeded in a similar way, leaving the Council of Europe before being hunted in 1969 under the dictatorial regime Colonels. She had reinstated her in 1974.
In 2014, the Russian parliamentarians of PACE had been deprived of their voting rights after the annexation of Crimea by Russia. After five years of tension, the Russian delegation had reinstated the PACE, the Grand Dam of the Ukrainians.