PUBLIC PALACE TO FUNCTION FROM SEPTEMBER GEVORG HARUTYUNYAN

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on May 30, 2008
Armenia

Interview with the advisor to the President Garnik Isagulyan.

`Three weeks back you announced that all the pre-conditions are
provided to form a Public Palace under the President. What are the
principles based on which this new representative body will be formed?’

`After getting President Serge Sargsyan’s recommendation to form a
Public Palace we firstly addressed public applications to our society,
social organizations, political parties and intellectuals. Our purpose
is to clarify the principles, goals and problems of forming the Public
Palace, based on their proposals, and to understand how our society
views the structure and the staff of this newly formed body.

We have never had similar institution in Armenian reality, but similar
bodies with consultative competences formed by the public
representatives function in many countries in the world. Particularly
in the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Georgia similar
structures already function.

In Russia for example the activity of the public-representative body is
regulated by the law, but in all the other countries the formulation
process is still on. Each of those structures has chosen its own method
of representing the opinion of the society.

We thought that it would be better if the representatives of our
society give their opinion on how they see the Public Palace. The
public must express their preferable way of the cooperation between
society, the state institutions and local self-governmental bodies. We
attach great importance to the assessment of the society given to the
decrees to be signed by the President, bills discussed in the National
Assembly, decisions taken by different administrations, which are going
to have significant impact on the public life.’

‘Mr. Isagulyan what are the responses, how are the preparation works
going on?’

`We expect that the political parties, social organizations, and the
citizens will continue to send their standpoints and proposals. In the
Presidential staff the assistants to the President Vigen Sargsyan,
Sevak Lalayan and me are involved in the group coordinating this work.
We have given our telephone numbers and e-mail address.

Especially social organizations and individuals are very active. We
have received hundreds of applications, proposals and messages. And
telephone calls are practically non-stop. To make the public
involvement complete and taking into account the existing internal
political tension, we decided to appeal to the political powers not
represented in the parliament. We have especially appealed to the
pro-oppositional powers to express their standpoints.

We are very much interested in the active participation of those social
organizations that have critical attitude towards us.

It is well known that the number of the parties officially registered
in our country is too much but most of them don’t function and our
telephone calls and letters remain unanswered.

We are especially consistent to have the opinion of those parties,
regarding the Public Palace, that didn’t overcome the 5% barrier during
the last Parliamentary elections. We have appealed to the offices of
the ex Presidents and the presidential candidates who participated in
the last presidential elections.

We have called the office of Armenian Pan National Movement, first
President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, and the offices of the movement
`Impeachment’. We have done everything so that no one will feel ignored.

May 30 is the deadline to get answers to our applications. We expect to
understand from those answers, which parties and organizations have
desire to become part of the Public Palace, and which – to become
candidates. By the way the list of those who have already expressed
desire is rather big.’