DUSHANBE, November 23, 2011, Asia-Plus — A two-day roundtable to discuss development and improvement of the election system in Tajikistan is concluding in Dushanbe today.
Organized by Tajikistan’s Central Commission for Elections and Referenda (CCER) under support of the Venice Commission, the meeting has brought together persons responsible for the holding of elections from Gorno Badakhshan, Sughd and Khatlon provinces, Dushanbe, cities and districts subordinate to the center as well as representatives from the CCER, political parties, Supreme Court, Council of Justice, Ombudsman’s Office, civil society and media as well as judges and international experts to discuss Tajikistan’s election legislation, legal regulation of election agitation, press coverage of elections, rights and duties of electoral commissions and ways to improve the election system in Tajikistan.
Shermuhammad Shohiyon, the chairman of the CCER, Sodiq Shernazarov, Senior Adviser to the President of Tajikistan, Zafar Azizov, the chairman of the Council of Justice, and Sergey Kuznetsov, the chief of elections and referendums department of the Venice Commission, addressed the meeting yesterday.
The Venice Commission is an advisory body of the Council of Europe, composed of independent experts in the field of constitutional law. It was created in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin wall, at a time of urgent need for constitutional assistance in Central and Eastern Europe. The Commission”s official name is the European Commission for Democracy through Law, but due to its founding and meeting place in Venice, Italy, where sessions take part four times a year, it is usually referred to as the Venice Commission.
The Venice Commission’s primary task is to assist and advise individual countries in constitutional matters in order to improve functioning of democratic institutions and the protection of human rights.
