ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT ADOPTED NA’S DRAFT STATEMENT ON IMPLEMENTATION OF PACE RESOLUTION 1609

ArmInfo
2008-06-17 14:35:00

The Armenian parliament has adopted the National Assembly’s draft
statement on implementation of PACE Resolution 1609 by Armenia,
Tuesday.

MP Hranush Hakobyan, one of the statement’s authors, said that
the Armenian public has been discussing PACE Resolution 1609 for
two months. Different assessments are given to the Resolution at
different levels, and parallels with other documents are drawn. In
this connection, the representatives of the ruling coalition in
parliament came out with an initiative to prepare a draft statement on
implementation of the Resolution 1609 by the republic. In particular,
the statement covers the events during both pre-election and
post-election periods.

Thus, the PACE Resolution notes that the presidential election in
Armenia was held in line with international standards. Furthermore,
the Resolution calls on all Armenian political forces to obey the
Constitutional Court’s decision. The document also points out the
mistakes and shortcomings registered during the election, as well
as proposals to eliminate them. For instance, PACE recommends the
Armenian authorities to reform the Election Code. In connection with
this speaker of the Armenian parliament formed the working group
on resolving of the given problem. The group is headed by headed
by chairman of the permanent parliamentary commission on the state
and legal issues David Harutyunyan. Experts of different political
forces , public organizations and mass media were involved in the
group. PACE Resolution also suggests to ensure independence and
transparency in Armenian Public TV activity, which should implement
the idea of pluralism of views. Moreover, the resolution suggests to
ensure independence of the commission on television and radio. The
main problem is that members of the commission should be selected on
the basis of competition. In this context suggestion of the Heritage
party was accepted and the detailed parliamentary hearing were held
on the draft laws which regulate the given sphere. Practically all
the parliamentary forces, public organizations and mass media took
part in the hearing. The package of the draft laws was drawn out
and directed to expertise of the Venice Commission of the Council
of Europe. Within the frames of Armenia’s commitments extraordinary
report of Armenian Ombudsman on the 1-2 March events was presented. The
draft law "On regulations of the National Assembly" was adopted in the
first reading. This draft law gives wider authorities to the Armenian
opposition. Alteration and amendments were made to the "Law on the
order of holding rallies, demonstrations and processions", which
meets all the international standards at present. Armenian president
charged to set up the working group, headed by justice minister Gevorg
Danielyan, on drawing out legislative and normative acts directed to
ensuring independence of the court system. As for the arrested people
for participation in the 1-2 March events, a total of 115 people were
detained and arrested. At present 72 people out of them were released,
14 recognized they are guilty and 3 were justified. Thus at present
criminal persecution continues only regarding 24 people. Certain
work was implemented for the dialogue between the opposition and
authorities. It is supposed to start the dialogue within the frames
of Public Council as well as in the National Assembly. Temporary
parliamentary commission to investigate the 1-2 March events is being
formed at present. And the post of deputy chairman of the commission
will be given to representative of the opposition.