Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
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The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is one of the institutions of the Council of Europe. It is composed of representatives elected by the national parliaments of the member states from among their membership. Unlike the European Parliament (an institution of the European Union), its powers extend only to the ability to investigate, recommend and advise. Even so, its recommendations on issues such as human rights have significant weight in the European political context.
It has a total of 626 members – 313 principal members and 313 substitutes – who are representatives of each Member State. There are also 18 observers of the Canadian, Israel and Mexico delegations. The size of each country determines its number of representatives and number of votes.
Each State member selects its method of designating its representatives to the parliamentary Assembly; however, they must be chosen from among the members of the respective Parliaments. Moreover, the political composition of each national delegation must reflect the representation of the different parties within the respective parliaments.
Similarly to the European Parliament, PACE is divided into political groups based on alliances between national parties of similar ideological viewpoints. However, these groups hold significantly less weight than the similar groups in the European Parliament, both due to the lack of any legislative powers and the lack of direct elections. The groups are:
- Socialist Group (SOC)
- Group of the European People's Party (EPP)
- Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE)
- European Democrat Group (EDG)
- Group of the Unified European Left (UEL)
- representatives not belonging to a political group of the Assembly ("NR"; including members from the European Green Party and other political orientations)
One important function of the PACE is the election of judges of the European Court of Human Rights.
Some notable members of PACE include:
- Dick Marty (Switzerland), appointed in late 2005 as rapporteur to investigate the CIA extraordinary renditions scandal.
