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:
“Oh, the shame of it! That I should live to see a son of mine try to take a dame away from his father!”
—S.J. Perelman, U.S. screenwriter, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, and Norman Z. McLeod. Groucho Marx, Horsefeathers, Huxley College president after catching his son Frank (Zeppo Marx)
“I shouldn’t want you to be surprised, or to draw any particular inference from my making speeches, or not making speeches, out there. I don’t recall any candidate for President that ever injured himself very much by not talking.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“... a friend told me that she had read of a woman who had knitted a wash rag for President Wilson. She was eighty years old and her friends thought it remarkable that she could knit a wash rag! I thought that if a woman of eighty could knit a wash rage for a Democratic President it behooved one of ninety-six to make something more than a wash rag for a Republican President.”
—Maria D. Brown (1827–1927)