Veronika Bílková Co-authored the Opinion on the Istanbul Convention
On 11 October 2019, the European Commission for Democracy Through Law of the Council of Europe, conventionally known as the Venice Commission, adopted the Opinion on the Constitutional Implications of the Ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention).
The opinion was issued at the request of Armenia which currently considers the ratification of the Istanbul Convention and wants to make sure that the Convention does not contradict its Constitution. The opinion focuses on five arguments most commonly used in the debate about the ratification of the Istanbul Convention in Armenia as well as in other countries, including the Czech Republic, where the ratification process is ongoing. Showing that the arguments against the ratification are not well-founded, the opinion concludes that there are no constitutional obstacles to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention. The opinion was co-authored by the head of the IIR Centre for International Law Veronika Bílková, who is the member of the Venice Commission on behalf of the Czech Republic and currently also its vice-president.
The text of the opinion is available here.