President
The president of the Commission, since December 2009, is the former Secretary General Mr Gianni Buquicchio, whilst his predecessor, Mr Jan Erik Helgesen, Professor at the University of Oslo, is elected 1st Vice-President. The new Secretary General of the Commission, who is the head of the Commission's secretariat at the Council of Europe's headquarters in Strasbourg, France, is Mr Thomas Markert.
The main focus of the work of the Venice Commission is on draft constitutions and constitutional amendments but the Commission also covers para-constitutional law, i.e. laws which are close to the Constitution, such as minority legislation or electoral law.
Requests for opinions come from the participating states and the organs of the Council of Europe or international organisations or bodies participating in the Venice Commission’s work. The opinions adopted by the Commission are not binding but are mostly followed by member states.
The areas of the Commission's activities are as follows:
Read more about this topic: Venice Commission
Famous quotes containing the word president:
“I don’t have any problem with a reporter or a news person who says the President is uninformed on this issue or that issue. I don’t think any of us would challenge that. I do have a problem with the singular focus on this, as if that’s the only standard by which we ought to judge a president. What we learned in the last administration was how little having an encyclopedic grasp of all the facts has to do with governing.”
—David R. Gergen (b. 1942)
“I can’t be President since I am a naturalized citizen, but I figured everything else was fair game.”
—Arati Prabhakar (b. c. 1959)
“I do not choose to run for President in nineteen twenty-eight.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)