The Parliamentary Assembly [antikvár]

PREFACE TO THE NINTH EDITIONThis manual of procedure has beeri prepared by Mr. John Sweetman and Mr. Bili Proctor at the request of the Council of Europe for the use of the members of the Parliamentary Assembly. It is the ninth in a series of editions which have been published at intervals since 1951.1The manual describes the procedure and practice up to the close of business in the Assembly's session of January 1990, though reference has occasionally been made to later developments. Its publication comes at a time of crucial importance in the history of the Parliamentary Assembly. The political scene in Europe has been transformed in 1989 and 1990 with almost bewildering speed. Not only have the formai military and economic barriers between East and West begun to be dismantled, but alsó the opportunity for the exercise of parliamentary democracy has suddenly been presented to whole new generations of European peoples.In these circumstances, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has seized the initiative, and through the development of "special guest status" has extended its parliamentary umbrella to the national legislative assemblies of Bulgaria, the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, Hungary, Poland, the USSR and Yugoslavia one of these countries, Hungary, became a full member of the Council of Europe on 6 November 1990. In September 1990 the Assembly organised a first Parliamentary Debate on Security and Co-operation in Europe, in which parliamentary from thirty-three signatory states of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act participated with equal rights. Whatever the outcome cf all these developments, the Parliamentary Assembly has established its place as a permanent feature in the future European order.The authority and effectiveness of the Parliamentary Assembly are firmly based on adherence to parliamentary procedure and practice. This adherence in its turn is strengthened by a manual of procedure which faithfully reflects the decisions taken, the precedents made, the practice followed and the rules enforced during the sittings of the Assembly and its committees.Heiririch Klebes Clerk of the Parliamentary Assembly1. Earlier editions were published in 1951, 1953, 1956, 1961, 1965, 1969, 1973 and 1983.