The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe has begun its closed plenary session, meeting in Venice, Italy. The schedule is interesting and relatively heavy for the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters.
On the agenda for this session, the Venice Commission will elect its new president. It will furthermore discuss and adopt the updated Rule of law checklist, as well as a series of key opinions and texts.
The opinions include five opinions concerning Latvia (regarding its draft law on the withdrawal from the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence – the Istanbul Convention), the Republic of Moldova (on the draft law on the Prosecution Office for anti-corruption and combatting organised crime), North Macedonia (on the draft law on adequate and fair representation) and Ukraine (on the draft amendments to certain legislative acts regarding the improvement of the competitive selection process for the position of judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine). There will also be a follow-up opinion in respect of Montenegro (on some questions relating to the procedure of early termination of the mandate of Constitutional Court judges due to age limits).
The commission will also examine, with a view to adoption, two reports and an amicus curiae brief for the European Court of Human Rights. Further details on the items before the commission appear in the annotated agenda.
All adopted texts will be made available on the Venice Commission website during the following week (beginning 15 December).
