Venice Commission
In March 2005 the Council of Europe's Venice Commission issued its advisory Opinion. The Venice Commission concluded that the Bonn Powers, although beneficial in the wake of the war, do “not correspond to democratic principles when exercised without due process and the possibility of judicial control”, and called for a “progressive phasing out of these powers and for the establishment of an advisory panel of independent lawyers for the decisions directly affecting the rights of individuals pending the end of the practice” (§100, p. 24)