Expert: CoE's accusations against Azerbaijan unfounded, legally void
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By Trend
The prestige of the Council of Europe has fallen significantly in the region and the world, as a result of the unprincipled position of this international structure, which it has been unequivocally demonstrating in recent years, a famous Russian expert and a prominent public figure and publicist Dmitry Verkhoturov told Trend.
The Russian political analyst noted that this international organization is in a serious crisis, as evidenced by unjustified criticism and manifestation of a policy of double standards in relation to various countries.
“In fact, this European organization is unable to exert any influence on the processes taking place in the world; nevertheless, it periodically promotes the dissemination of false and completely unreasonable information regarding certain countries that isn’t confirmed by real facts,” said Verkhoturov. “For example, if we talk about the PACE resolution regarding the allegedly existing political prisoners in Azerbaijan, in this matter, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is completely right in his assessments.”
“This resolution is unproven and legally insignificant,” the political analyst added. “In essence, these are rumors. PACE and the Council of Europe claim that they uphold the principles of law. So they should have been guided in this matter by the principle of law, in particular the fact that the burden of proof lies with the accusing party, and doubts about guilt are interpreted in favor of the accused.”
“If PACE or the Council of Europe believes that there are political prisoners in Azerbaijan, then they should have: a) presented their list; b) provided a legal opinion that in their cases there is no corpus delicti envisaged by Azerbaijan’s Criminal Code; c) provided a legal opinion that these people were convicted in violation of Azerbaijan’s Criminal Procedure Code,” Verkhoturov noted.
“Then there would be a completely different issue,” said the political analyst. “However, the reality is that neither of these things happened. If they don’t even have a list of persons, then these are just rumors that aren’t even subject to discussion. Therefore, I believe that the unfounded accusation, and any sanctions arising from it, is no longer a defense of the law, but political repressions quite in Stalinist style.”
The expert added that the rumors spread by the Council of Europe regarding Azerbaijan are deprived of logic and reason.
The Council of Europe is an international organization that was created to facilitate cooperation among its members, states and countries of Europe in the field of standards of law, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural interaction. Moreover, unlike the decisions by the European Union, decisions of the Council of Europe are not binding.
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