Strasbourg, 25 September 1996 (RFE/RL) -- The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has elected Romanian and Ukrainian judges to the European Court of Human Rights.
In voting last night, the assembly chose Marin Voicu as Romania's representative on the human-rights bench. Voicu, who received slightly more than half the votes cast (46 out of 88), is currently president of the Court of Appeals in Constanta, on the Black Sea. To represent the Ukraine, the assembly chose Volodymyr Boutkevitch, who is a professor of law and director of the Ukrainian Center for Human Rights. Boutkevitch received over three-quarters of the assembly's votes cast (66 out of 88).
The European Human Rights Court is a major organ of the Council of Europe. It rules on all admitted applications for adjudication from citizens in the council's 39 member states, which may be submitted over the heads of their governments. The government are obliged to accept the court's verdict or face eventual sanctions from the Council of Europe.