The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has convened a panel on the parliamentary dimension of democracy, which will meet on 20 - 21 January 2005, at the House of Parliaments, the IPU Headquarters in Geneva. Mr. Avraham Burg, fformer Speaker of the Isareli Knesset, Mrs. Oyun Sanjasuuren, Deputy Speaker of Mongolian Parliament, Mr. Cyril Ndebele, former Speaker of the Parliament of Zimbabwe, Senator Dulce María Sauri of Mexico, and Mrs. Yakin Erturk, UN Rapporteur on Violence against women, are among those attending the panel.

The panel will be meeting for the first of a series of sessions designed to produce guidelines which will serve as a basis for a manual of good parliamentary practices. The handbook will show how parliaments contribute to democracy, and will identify the key features of a democratic parliament, with examples of good practice drawn from around the world. According to British university professor David Beetham, who will be the rapporteur of the panel, "there is the perception that parliaments are increasingly being by-passed in the governing process, and both collectively and individually, their members are held in low public esteem. It is timely, therefore, to seek to establish some clear criteria for democratic parliaments as a contribution to increasing understanding of their place and importance in the democratic process, and improving their public standing within it".

The IPU also has a longstanding objective of promoting the contribution of parliaments to international cooperation and ensuring a more democratic decision making process at the international level. The panel is expected to examine ways and means whereby parliaments can achieve this objective in a more efficient manner. Much of its work will be under-pinned by the IPU’s Universal Declaration on Democracy adopted in Cairo in 1997 by the representatives of 128 parliaments.

Other participants in the panel include : Mr. Pierre Cornillon, former IPU Secretary General, Mr. Olivier Delamare, Senior staff member of the French Senate, Mrs. Marta Lagos (Chile), Executive Director of Latinobarometro, Mr. Francis Kpatindé (Benin), journalist at the Paris based weekly Jeune Afrique L’Intelligent, Mr. Peter de Souza (India), expert in democracy assessment, University of Goa, Congresswoman Loretta Ann Rosales, Chairperson of the Human Rights Committee of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, and Mrs. Christina Murray, Professor of Human Rights and Constitutional Law at the University of Cape Town (South Africa).

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Established in 1889 and with its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the IPU, the oldest multilateral political organisation, currently brings together 140 affiliated parliaments and seven regional assemblies as associate members. The world organisation of parliaments has an Office in New York, which acts as its Permanent Observer at the United Nations.
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Contact for additional information or interviews:

Mrs. Luisa Ballin, IPU Information Officer 5, ch. du Pommier, CH - 1218 Le Grand-Saconnex / Geneva Tel. +41 22 919 41 16/27 Fax: +41 22 919 41 60 E-mail: lb@mail.ipu.org or cbl@mail.ipu.org