ARMENIAN PRESIDENT DID NOT PROLONG LEGAL REGIME OF STATE OF EMERGENCY
Noyan Tapan
March 20, 2008
YEREVAN, MARCH 20, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA President sees no factor
or cause to prolong the state of emergency, RA President Robert
Kocharian stated during his meeting with journalists. According to
the President, all state bodies work uniterruptedly, life enters its
normal course. And the legal regime of state of emergency will be
stopped from March 21 in RA.
According to the President, his goal is to completely stabilize the
situation, to bring it to the situation we had before the presidential
elections from point of view of controllability, and to pass the power
in a stable condition to newly elected President Serge Sargsian. "And
it will be just this way," he said. The RA President at the same time
said that he does not mean the psychological factor, as it will take
more time to improve the situation in that respect.
R. Kocharian said that no violation has been recorded during the 20
days of the state of emergency, the army and the Police showed reserve,
and the prvailing majority of population treated the events of state of
emergency with comprehension. Therefore, according to the President,
during the legal regime of state of emergency "we tried to reduce
the number of soldiers doing service, some steps of mitigation of
the legal regime were taken two more times."
"Democracy needs to be protected from demagogy, we have carried out
large-scale reforms in different spheres, but life showed that the
mechanisms that are to guarantee the security of our citizens and their
property need to be strengthened," – this is one of the first lessons
the authorities have learnt from the well-known events. According to
the head of state, the bases of the statehood need to be protected
legislatively: the well-known events showed that the legislation
does not envisage a number of articles, which exist in almost every
European country. For instance, in Germany rally organizers and
all those who would call soldiers and policemen for leaving their
service and joining the demonstrants would be sentenced to 5 years’
imprisonment, and the punishment envisaged for it in a number of
countries is stricter. "I will initiate our legislation’s also having
stricter norms of protecting, strengthening the state bases. We did
not think that people could appear in Armenia, for whom the order to
disorganize the country can become the goal of their life. We came
across such a cruel reality and should draw the respective conclusions:
we need to undertake serious legislative steps in the direction of
strengthening the state bases," R. Kocharian said. He assured that
these steps will not be taken at the expense of weakening democracy,
on the contrary, they will be aimed at protecting democracy from
demagogy and adventurism: "in order to restrain adventurism in
politics especially by people who are ready to sacrifice other’s
lives for political ambitions."
The RA President is also convinced that liability for agitating
violence or some steps that will lead to use of violence should
be made strict. "In this issue there is also a need to study the
experience of foreign countries, solutions have been found in many
and many civilized countries, and the legislation is much stricter
than the legislation working in RA," he said.
The RA President also considers that steps should be undertaken to
strengthen the respective subdivision of the Police in the direction of
providing it with more modern and special security means. According to
him, the events showed that "what he have is rather outdated, it is not
always secure." According to the RA President, the seven civil deaths
would be less by three if these special means were indeed more secure:
the expertise found out that the three victims are the consequence
of using special means. The authorities have already started working
in that direction, the next government together with some European
country should try to implement a special program of training the
respective Police subdivision and to provide it with modern equipment.
In response to the question spread in society of who had ordered
to shoot, the RA President said: "In no country of the world the
Police need an order to shoot, the RA law On Police envisages that
the Police have the right to use means if there is a threat to the
life of a policeman or a third person."
According to the President, resolute steps should be taken to exclude
involvement of some NGOs in politics: the Soul’s Ordeal veteran
organization is almost completely involved, and many members of the
organization have taken an active part in the disorders, part of
the Yerkrapah Volunteers’ Union activists has also taken part in the
disorders. "That prospect should be excluded in the future," Robert
Kocharian said adding that this is a very serious danger for Armenia.
According to the RA President, it is also a conclusion from the events
that the government’s activity should be more efficient, transparent,
and perceptible for the people.