ARMEN HARUTYUNYAN: "THE LOSER IS THE STATE, THE PAYER IS THE TAXPAYER"
Panorama.am
20:50 25/09/2007
Armenian defender of human rights Armen Harutyunyan presented
certain statistics related to his office today, inclusive until
September 1. According to those statistics, protests are again most
often against the State Police, the courts, the Prosecutor General’s
office, and the Yerevan city administration. Mainly the complaints
center around unjust decisions concerning personal rights.
In the course of a year and a half, some 10 thousand citizens have
passed through the human rights office, many of them feeling treated
as foreigners, making the office feel that much needs to be done in
the realm of citizen-government relations. "First of all, a culture
of good relations with the public must be developed.
Officials need to understand that they are there to serve the public,
not the other way around," Harutyunyan stated.
The ombudsman doesn’t feel that the recent activities in Strasbourg
will help in the instance of just decisions in Armenian courtrooms
or personal rights of citizens. Harutyunyan considers the state of
justice in Armenia as embarrassing, for example, the European court’s
recent decision concerning Misha Harutyunyan.
"I am shocked about the decision the Armenian courts came to," he
said. "I am surprised that the judge in that case is still working."
The other case, "Jgryan against the Republic of Armenia," is connected
to personal rights. "In this case," Harutyunyan said, "the state
didn’t want the case to reach the courts, in other words, the state
knew the defendant was in the right." The human rights head says that
if we look at the fact that during a four year period there were no
such cases solved in the defendant’s favor, the situation remains
bothering. Another way of looking at it, he says, is that the state is
the loser, yet the payer is the taxpayer. Harutyunyan hopes that cases
involving human rights can be solved in the country, not elsewhere.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
