Impact of Council of Europe on the shaping and popularizing of the standards of the rule of law

The subject of the article is the issue of the Council of Europe’s impact on shaping and popularizing of the standards of a principle of the rule of law. The rule of law is one of the three basic values on which the Council’s activities is based. The Council’s care of maintaining the rule of law standards by the member states is manifested in two main areas. First of all, the Council undertakes activities aimed at defining and creating a uniform, universal way of understanding the principle of the rule of law by individual states. Secondly, the Council’s legal system states a few specific mechanisms to enforce the implementation by the member states of the principle. However, as practice shows, not all of them are sufficiently effective.

Activity of the Venice Commission to improve democratic standards in the legislation of Montenegro in 2011–2014

This paper is an attempt to show the activity of the Venice Commission regarding Montenegro in 2011–2014. The Commission for Democracy through Law focuses its activity primarily on constitutional law, analyzing not only draft amendments to fundamental law, but also all amendments to the constitution and other legal acts related to the fundamental system order. The actions of the Commission described in the text refer to Montenegro, which is a parliamentary democracy, the political system of which is governed by the 2007 Constitution. The state is applying for membership in the European Union, which began accession negotiations in June 2012. However, there are still many issues in terms of compatibility to European standards, which require significant attention to reach the desired state, in line with the standards functioning in the West of Europe.
The first part of the text is an introduction to the subject of the Venice Commission’s activities. The second part deals with the Commission’s activities in matters of legal aid and its mission to improve democratic standards and the protection of human rights. The third part of the text is an attempt to present the influence of the Venice Commission, through its opinions and recommendations, on the legislative process of Montenegro. It focused on the Commission’s activities and its possible impact on improving the observance of democratic standards in Montenegro. The final thought is in turn an attempt to draw conclusions from the analyzed material.

The European Commission for Democracy Through Law was created in 1990 and for the last three decades has adopted a number of documents of related to electoral standards in democratic states. They include legal opinions on national laws (or draftlaws), as well as documents of a more general nature, concerning specific topics (studies, reports). In this article, the author aims at presenting the main documents that include the electoral standards developed by the Venice Commission. However, as the opinions of the Venice Commission are not binding, the second part of this contribution presents the way this contribution of the Venice Commission is taken into account in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in cases concerning the alleged violations of the right to free elections.

The conduct of free elections depends to a large extent on the efficient functioning of electoral bodies. The doctrine distinguishes a number of models of functioning of election administration bodies. The standards of functioning of electoral bodies at the European level are defined by the standards of the Venice Commission, and in particular the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters. In Poland, after World War II, the adopted model of election administration did not meet democratic standards. It was only after 1990 that the State Election Commission was established as a permanent body consisting exclusively of judges of the Supreme Court, Constitutional Tribunal and Supreme Administrative Court. This concept was abandoned in an atmosphere of massive criticism of the judiciary. Although the model adopted now does not directly violate international standards, it seems to be a step backwards from the regulations existing after 1990.