The credentials of the Russian State Duma's delegation have been appealed at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
The relevant proposal of Lithuanian MP Emanuelis Zingeris received a sufficient number of votes during the opening of the PACE Winter Session in Strasbourg. The meeting was broadcast on the PACE official website.
Zingeris said he wanted to appeal the credentials of the Russian delegation on legal grounds, since Russia had recently announced its intentions to hold a referendum on the correlation of international law and domestic legislation of the Russian Federation in accordance with the Russian Constitution.
Read alsoParliament in Ukraine approves return of country's delegation to PACE
According to Russian initiatives, the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights will not be taken into account, the MP said.
This proposal received the required number of votes from at least five PACE delegation countries.
Chairman of the meeting and member of the Latvian delegation to PACE Boris Tsilevitch said the credentials of the Russian delegation had been appealed without debate, and now the PACE Monitoring Committee should prepare a report.
In addition, other PACE members proposed to appeal the credentials of the Russian delegation on procedural grounds over the elections to the State Duma in Russian-occupied Crimea, since, according to international law, residents of annexed territories should take part in the elections in the state to which these territories belong legally, namely to Ukraine. In addition, several Russian members of the delegation to PACE were previously subject to EU sanctions.
This proposal also received the required number of votes. Now this issue should be considered by the PACE Procedural Committee.
