The Constitutional Court of Belarus and the Venice Commission will hold a joint seminar in Minsk on April 24. The theme will be “Using international legal acts in exercising the rights, freedoms and legal interests of citizens in the national legislation and exercising constitutional right of citizens for legal protection in the Republic of Belarus: problems and prospects”, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Belarus Andrei Popov told a news briefing on April 17.

Secretary of the Venice Commission Gianni Buquicchio is expected to attend the seminar.

The European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission, was established in 1990. It has 51 full members (all countries of the Council of Europe, Algeria, Republic of Korea, Kyrgyzstan and Chile).

The commission offers assistance to the member states in constitution engineering, provides international-legal expert analysis of the national legislation, conducts international seminars and cooperates with constitutional courts.

Belarus has been an associate member of the organisation since 1994. The interaction with this organisation is one of the elements of cooperation of Belarus with the Council of Europe.

Representatives of the Venice Commission took part in the seminar “Strengthening the principles of democratic legal state in the Republic of Belarus through constitutional control” in Minsk in June 2003.

In September 2004, Minsk played host to a joint seminar of the Constitutional Court and Venice Commission “Constitutional control and development of the socio-economic state.”