IN ARMENIAN OMBUDSMAN’S OPINION, REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA WILL LOSE MANY OF MARCH 1 CASES IN EUROPEAN COURT

Noyan Tapan
Oct 23, 2008

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 23, NOYAN TAPAN. We should think of making social
relations sound to exclude cases like March 1 in the future, RA
Ombudsman Armen Haroutiunian said in his interview to the Shant
TV company. The Ombudsman with the consent of the RA President
is to be involved in the fact-finding group to be created for the
purpose of studying those events. According to the Ombudsman, rather
a deep analysis should be made and it should be cleared up what
deformations have been made in social relations and what need to be
corrected. According to him, having a common goal to make Armenia a
democratic and legal state, people can have divergences over some
issues, but it does not mean that the divergences should lead to
hostility and March 1. The Ombudsman considers that the culture of
a civilized political struggle should be introduced in the country.

The Ombudsman welcomed "RA President’s political will" to form
a fact-finding group from equal number of opposition and power
representatives and considers positive that experts and not political
figures will be involved in the group. A. Haroutiunian refrained
from giving estimations to the activity of the NA Ad-hoc Committee
on Events Occurred on 1-2 March, however he said that in difference
to the fact-finding group, the Committee has been formed by another
principle, that of coalition majority. At the same time the Ombudsman
said that it will not be right to oppose the activities of the two
structures to each other, it is important that the two structures
be able to present an all-embracing picture of the events thanks to
complementing each other.

The Ombudsman is for changing arrest chosen as a restraint to NA
deputies Myasnik Malkhasian, Hakob Hakobian, and Khachatur Sukiasian
(the latter is being searched for), as he does not think that being
in freedom they can hinder the preliminary investigation.

As regards the cases on the March 1-2 events, A. Haroutiunian said
that as a lawyer his attitude is equivocal. "I have an apprehension
that RA will lose many of these cases in the European Court of Human
Rights." He rendered it more clear by saying that if PACE clearly
mentioned in the well-known resolution adopted by it that "only
testimony of the Police is not enough for an objective investigation
of the case, it is not difficult to guess how these cases will be
treated in the European Court."