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June 2.– This week, politics in the UK and EU highlight one of history’s most ironic moments. In the UK, faced with Baroness Heather Hallett’s requests for access to Covid exchanges among senior government figures, the champions of ‘take back control’ squirm around. In the EU, those they accused of being anti-democratic are intensifying action to invigorate democracy against dark forces and to sustain participatory democracy.

All this is happening because both the UK and the EU face elections. In the EU, in June 2024 there will be elections to the European Parliament. It was first directly elected by voters from all nine members of the states comprising the then European Community (forerunner of the EU) in 1979. In those days, it was little more than a talking shop. But gradually it and the states’ governments made a reality of the principle of democratic accountability. As a result, the European Parliament has real power to legislate and hold member governments and the EU Commission to account over decisions taken together. Now it is acting to protect democracy.

Why the obsession with democracy?

Berlin, June 5.– The Council of Europe annual conference of Directors of Prison and Probation Services will convene on June 6 and 7 to explore innovative responses to challenges such as prison overcrowding, the need to improve living conditions in prisons, the increasing number of people with mental problems in prison and probation and how to better help offenders reintegrate into society. This 28th Conference will be held at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jägerstrasse 22/23, 10117 Berlin

Hosted by the German Federal Ministry of Justice, the conference will bring together directors of prison and probation services from the 46 Council of Europe member states, its observer states, and international experts and organizations.

This Movement intends to promote human rights and enhance democratic values and processes embedded in the Constitution.

Participants renewed their commitment to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and established Defend Our Democracy as a progressive civil society movement. Issues flagged by those present included local and global threats to democracy, a lack of active citizenry for transformation and accountability, and the problem of young people having no agency to respond to their generational mission.

The Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which brings together around 60 of the Assembly’s members, met in Latvia. This Committee acts on the Assembly’s behalf between plenary sessions and is made up of the President and Vice-Presidents of the Assembly, the chairpersons of political groups, the chairpersons of national delegations, and the committee chairpersons, totaling some 60 parliamentarians from the Council of Europe’s 46 member States.

Riga, May 28.– After the opening of the meeting by PACE President Tiny Kox, Saeima Speaker Edvards Smiltēns gave a welcome address, and the Standing Committee ratified the credentials of new members of the Assembly submitted by the delegations of Austria, Georgia, Germany, and the Republic of Moldova, followed by an exchange of views with Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs in the framework of Latvia’s Presidency of the Committee of Ministers.

There have been two requests for current affairs debates on “The follow-up to the Reykjavik Summit” (with the participation of Aoife Nolan, President of the European Committee of Social Rights) and on “Excluding athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in the Olympics” (with a statement by Kaspars Cipruss, Secretary General of the Latvian Basketball Federation). Those were the highlights of the Standing Committee meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), in Riga on Friday 26 May 2023.

“Now we must implement the decisions taken in Reykjavik”, PACE President said