d in the conclusions.
CHAPTER 1. THE PLACE OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE DOCUMENTS among the DOCUMENTS OF THE OFFICIAL STYLE
1.1 The Council of Europe: structure, objectives and official documents
Extralinguistic factors are very important for adequate comprehension and translation of the texts of official documents which constitute the subject of our study as the context of any text is based upon the extralinguistic reality. Thus, we consider it necessary to give some information about the Council of Europe, its structure and main objectives. It will provide us with background knowledge useful for interpretation of legal and administrative discourse.Council of Europe (CoE) is an international organization promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation. It was founded on 5 May 1949 by the Treaty of London (the Statute of the Council of Europe), has 47 member states with some 800 million citizens, and is an entirely separate body from the European Union (EU). Statutory institutions are the Committee of Ministers comprising the foreign ministers of each member state, the Parliamentary Assembly composed of MPs from the Parliament of each member state, and the Secretary General heading the Secretariat of CoE. The Commissioner for Human Rights is an independent institution within CoE, mandated to promote awareness of and respect for human rights in the member states.headquarters of CoE are in Strasbourg, France, with English and French as its two official languages. The Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress also use German, Italian, and Russian for some of their work.1 (a) of the Statute states that "The aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress "[13, p. 4]. Therefore, membership is open to all European states which seek European integration, accept the principle of the rule of law and are able and willing to guarantee democracy, fundamental human rights and freedoms.the member states of the European Union transfer national legislative and executive powers to the European Commission and the European Parliament in specific areas under European Community law, CoE member states maintain their sovereignty but commit themselves through conventions (ie public international law) and co-operate on the basis of common values ​​and common political decisions. Those conventions and decisions are developed by the member states working together at CoE. CoE conventions could also be opened for signature to non-member states thus facilitating equal co-operation with countrie...
