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17 October 2024 MP Mladen Grujic, member the National Assembly standing delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union

Thursday, 17 October 2024

Mladen Grujic Elected Member of IPU Committee on Human Rights Parliamentarians

Member of Parliament and member of our standing delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Mladen Grujic was elected member of the IPU Committee on Human Rights of Parliamentarians for a five-year term. Our candidate received by far the most votes, 96 in favour, in competition with ten candidates from seven countries - Argentina, Paraguay, the Philippines, Pakistan, Uganda, Mongolia and the Maldives.

The scope of work of this prestigious ten-member Committee is the protection and defence of MPs around the world from abuse, harassment, arrest, mistreatment and physical attacks. The mission of the members of this Committee includes visits to arrested MPs in prisons and taking over political and legal mechanisms in order to free the MPs and treat them in accordance with current laws with full protection of MPs' human rights according to international standards.

During his presentation, Grujic pointed out that "the protection of democracy begins with the protection of democratically elected representatives" and that during his mandate he will fully contribute to the protection of the human rights of threatened and arrested peoples’ representatives around the world.

The 149th IPU Assembly in Geneva was attended by 129 delegations of national parliaments, with 1,432 participants, of them over 630 MPs, including 54 heads of parliament and 36 of their deputies.

As an urgent matter, the members of this global parliamentary organisation, gathering 181 parliaments in the world, supported the European proposal entitled "The MPs’ reply to the UN Secretary General’s urgent plea to recommit to multilateralism for global peace, justice and sustainability", also adopting the Resolution "The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Democracy, Human Rights and the Rule of Law" prepared by the IPU Standing Committee on Democracy and Human Rights.