Author: Badalian Vardan

UKRAINE-EGLISE ARMENIENNE
Disparition de l’Archevêque Grigoris Bouniatian (69 ans), le
représentant de l’Eglise arménienne en Ukraine

Le chef de l’Eglise arménienne en Ukraine, l’archevêque Grigoris
Bouniatian vient de disparaître à Kharkov. Il avait 69 ans. Né à
Etchmiadzine en 1946, il avait occupé de nombreux postes de
représentant de l’Eglise arménienne à travers le monde. Mgr Grigoris
Bouniatian était à la tête de l’Eglise arménienne en Ukraine depuis
2001. Sa disparition surprise a mis en émoi la communauté arménienne
d’Ukraine. L’Union des Arméniens d’Ukraine présente ses condoléances à
l’occasion de cette disparition d’un homme très actif et apprécié.

Krikor Amirzayan

dimanche 8 mars 2015,
Krikor Amirzayan (c)armenews.com

NBC Southern California
March 8 2015

Driver in 4-Year-Old Girl’s Hit-Run Death Turns Self in: Police

By Willian Avila and Kate Larsen

A man suspected of being behind the wheel of a car that fatally struck
a 4-year-old Southern California girl and drove off was arrested after
he surrendered at a police station, officials said Saturday.

Shant Badleean, 55, of Glendale was accompanied by his family when he
turned himself in at the Glendale Police Department, said Glendale
police spokeswoman Tahnee Lightfoot.

Badleean was booked on a felony hit-and-run charge, police said. His
bail was set at $50,000.

The news came as family and friends held a candlelight vigil for
Violeta Khachaturyan. A moment of silence was held for her about 7:30
p.m. to coincide with the announcement by police.

Loved ones prayed, sang and burned incense – Armenian traditions when
someone dies.

“I believe she is in heaven playing with the angels right now,” said
said neighbor Mases Allhiveirdia.

Khachaturyan was struck about 4:55 p.m. Friday when she ran into the
street after her mother, police said. She was hit by a sedan and sent
flying into a parked vehicle while the car drove away.

The light-colored sedan was traveling west in the 1200 block of East
Wilson at the time of the collision, according to a statement released
by the Glendale police Saturday.

“Yesterday we didn’t know what color the car was and today we hear
something that no one ever thought we would in this short period of
time. So of course it’s definitely a satisfying feeling from the
family,” said Arshak Bareghamyan, a family friend.

Neighbors left flowers, candles and stuffed animals at a makeshift
memorial in Glendale in honor of the little girl.

“It’s a parent’s worst nightmare, we feel for them and if there’s
anything that we can do to help them out, we’re more than willing to,”
said Karla Mnatsakanyan, who did not know the family but showed up to
the vigil to lend her support.

The Glendale Police Officers Association was accepting donations on
behalf of the Khachaturyan family. Checks can be made out to “GPOA
Cops for Kids” and should indicate that the donation is for the
family. Anyone with questions about donating can call 818-246-9053.

“This tragic event weighs heavy on the hearts of all our police and
fire personnel who were involved in the response and treatment of
little Violeta,” Chief Robert Castro said.

NBC4’s Asher Klein and Jane Yamamoto contributed to this report.

The Pappas Post
March 7 2015

Remembering Christopher Thurber: Saved 7,000 Greek Children from
Smyrna Catastrophe; Flogged by Turks for Saving Greek Woman

By Gregory Pappas

Many personal stories of service and sacrifice have shaped the history
of the US involvement in the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the
distinctive work of various US missionary and aid organizations,
including one called the Near East Foundation, originally known as
Near East Relief.

One such story is that of Christopher Thurber, a public health expert
who, at the start of World War I, left his home in Connecticut to work
with typhus-stricken children living in the barracks of war torn
Constantinople.

Thurber himself contracted typhus, but recovered in time to direct the
safe transfer of 7,000 children from Sivas, Turkey, to Greece after
the 1922 Smyrna Disaster, when the Turkish army burned the city to the
ground and terrorized the local Greek and Armenian Christian
populations.

Thurber became well-respected and admired for his humanitarianism, but
it was his attempt to save a Greek refugee woman from being beaten by
Turkish soldiers in Scutari, Turkey, that further elevated his
standing. As punishment for the attempted rescue, he was flogged, and
suffered permanent damage to both feet. He walked with a cane for the
rest of his life.

In 1924, Thurber traveled to Greece to be director of relief work in
the region for Near East Relief. There, he supervised the education of
children in orphanages and also established homes in Athens for boys
who had gone on to graduate.

Thurber was in the midst of planning a new tuberculosis pavilion for
children when he suffered a stroke and died on May 31, 1930. His
contribution to public education and health was so pervasive that the
Greek government held a state funeral and declared a national day of
mourning in his honor. No other American had, or has since, received
such a tribute.

Describing the Indescribable: 1915

By MassisPost
Updated: March 6, 2015

By Alan Whitehorn

How does one ‘think about the unthinkable?’ How does one ‘describe the
indescribable?’ These are among the analytical and moral challenges in
trying to understand genocide. As Raphael Lemkin, the originator of
the concept of genocide, noted: genocide occurred in history before
the word ‘genocide’ was created. The history of humans is marked by
episodes of great cruelty and mass killings where groups that were
different were targeted for persecution and slaughter.

Alan Whitehorn

The mass deportations and killings of the Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire peaked during WW I, but occurred before the term genocide
emerged in 1944. In fact, the Young Turk regime’s slaughter of the
Armenians would be a catalyst for Lemkin to develop such a legal
concept, in a preliminary way in the 1930s and in final phrasing in
the 1940s.

When trying to understand the events of 1915 onwards, it is useful to
ask: What words and phrases were used by the Armenian survivors,
domestic and foreign witnesses, and newspaper writers to describe what
happened? The challenge was how to describe the indescribable, or what
Churchill would later in 1941 call “the crime without a name”.

The influential international newspaper The New York Times reported
extensively on the massacres of the Armenians under the Young Turk
dictatorship. A content analysis overview of The New York Times for
the year 1915 (the peak year of the deportations and killings) reveals
that a variety of words and phrases were used to try to describe the
horrific scenes and deeds. Reviewing the range of the words employed
can assist in conveying the magnitude of the man-made catastrophe that
befell the Armenians.

Among the terms and phrases offered in the articles in The New York
Times in 1915 were the following: “pillage”, “great exodus”, “great
deportation”, “completely depopulated”, “wholesale deportations”,
“systematically uprooted”, “wholesale uprooting of the native
population”, “young women and girls appropriated by the Turks, thrown
into harems, attacked or else sold to the highest bidder”, “children
are being kidnapped by the wholesale”, “kidnapping of attractive young
girls”, “rape”, “unparalleled savagery”, “acts of horror”, “murder,
rape, and other savageries”, “endure terrible tortures”, “revolting
tortures”, “their breasts cut off, their nails pulled out, their feet
cut off, or they hammer nails into them just as they do to horses”,
“burned to death”, “helpless women and children were roasted to
death”, “massacres”, “slaughter”, “atrocities”, “unbelievable
atrocities”, “systematically murdered men and turned women and
children out into the desert, where thousands perished of starvation”,
“million Armenians killed or in exile”, “1,500,000 Armenians starve”,
“dying in prison camps”, “wholesale massacres”, “slaughtered
wholesale”, “fiendish massacres”, “massacre was planned”, “most
thoroughly organized and effective massacres this country has ever
known”, “extirpating the million and a half Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire”, “policy of extermination”, “plan for extirpating Christianity
by killing off Christians of the Armenian race”, “plan to exterminate
the whole Armenian people”, “deliberately exterminated”, “virtually
the whole nation had been wiped out”, “annihilation of a whole
people”, “organized system of pillage, deportations, wholesale
executions, and massacres”, “pillage, rape, murder, wholesale
expulsion and deportation, and massacre”, “systematic, authorized and
desperate effort on the part of the rulers of Turkey to wipe out the
Armenians”, “deliberate murder of a nation”, “war of extermination”,
“race extermination”, “intention was to exterminate the Armenian
race”, “Armenia without Armenians”, “extinction menaces Armenia”,
“death of Armenia”, “deportation order and the resulting war of
extinction”, and “aim at the complete elimination of all non-Moslem
races from Asiatic Turkey”, and “crimes against civilization and
morality”.

There are at least ten examples (five in the decades before 1915 and
five in the years after) where the biblical word “holocaust” in the
generic sense is used to describe either the mass burning of Armenians
alive, massacres of Christians or attempt at annihilation of the
Armenian people. The New York Times’ references in the 1915-1922 era
to the Armenians’ fate include the phrasing “holocaust”, “war’s
holocaust of horror”, “great holocaust” and “final holocaust”.

Clearly authors strained for the words that could explain the
magnitude of such horrific scenes and deeds. Witnesses were often
overwhelmed, particularly at the time of the deadly deeds, but also in
the retelling of the painful accounts. For many who witnessed such
atrocities, it was a life-altering experience.

Within a month of the Ottoman Empire’s April 24, 1915 arrest,
deportation and later killing of key Armenian leaders in
Constantinople and increasing reports of mass deportations and
massacres, the allied Entente countries of Britain, France and Russia
used the ominous phrase “crimes against civilization and humanity”.
This description officially issued on May 24, 1915 (printed in The New
York Times on the same day) was part of a semi-judicial warning to the
Young Turk regime about its crimes and would become a key term in
international law. It was an important step in the development of the
legal concept of genocide.

However, no single word or combination of words or phrases could
adequately convey the magnitude of suffering and horror of what
transpired. Even today, we search for ways to “describe the
indescribable”.

An excerpt from Alan Whitehorn, ed., The Armenian Genocide: The
Essential Reference Guide (Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2015) to be
published in April.

book: 978-1-61069-687-6
e-book: 978-1-61069-688-3

Mexico presidential administration representative about why
Azerbaijani propaganda shouldn’t be supported for sake of caviar

13:24 07/03/2015 >> ANALYSIS

Mexican local authorities and Azerbaijani government signed an
agreement in June 2011 about constructing a Mexico-Azerbaijan
Friendship Park where a monument to Heydar Aliyev and events in
Khojalu was supposed to be erected, and the government of Azerbaijan
was to fund those works of ‘city beautification.’

In October and December 2011 Mexican Parliament called on the
government to urge Armenia and Azerbaijan to put an end to their
dispute over Nagorno Karabakh and punish those guilty for the events
in Khojalu, Office of President of Mexico Representative Francisco
Soní Solchaga writes in his article published on the website of the
journal Foreign Affairs Latinoamerica. In this way Mexico was pulled
into that conflict, and what is worse, supported Azerbaijan without
the Mexicans even being aware of where that republic, Khojalu or
Nagorno Karabakh are situated, the author writes.

In the historical background of the region, Solchaga notes that at the
beginning of the 20th century the Armenians lived in that region on
the territories of both the Russian and Ottoman empires. In Ottoman
Empire they suffered Genocide in 1915-1920. Consequently, the
Armenians are mainly concentrated on the territory of the Republic of
Armenia today, though they also maintain an influential Diaspora in
the US, France and Russia. The author also highlights that Turkey
denies responsibility for the Armenian Genocide which resulted in
diplomatic tension between the two countries, as well as between
Turkey and European states.

The author writes that the current conflict between Armenia and
Azerbaijan comes as a continuation of their confrontation over
Nakhijevan and Nagorno Karabakh since 1918-1920. After the region was
annexed by the USSR, the conflict temporarily calmed down; however the
circumstances that had provoked it remained. The Soviet authorities
recognized Nakhijevan and Nagorno Karabakh as Azerbaijani territories.
Decades later predominantly Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh
started to demand more autonomy, yet Azerbaijan did not accept that.

During 1987 various cases of ethnic violence took place, and when in
February 1988 the Parliament of Nagorno Karabakh voted for joining to
the Armenian SSR, a forced expulsion of the Armenian population from
Azerbaijan began. In March the Supreme Council sent the troops of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs to the region, yet the violence did not
stop, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union Nagorno Karabakh
declared its independence. The conflict outgrew into an open war
between the unrecognized republic of Nagorno Karabakh (with the
unofficial support of Armenia) and Azerbaijan.

In order to promote the negotiation process over the settlement of the
conflict OSCE Minsk Group was formed under co-presidency of the US,
France and Russia. In May 1994 Bishkek Protocol was signed putting an
end to the war. De facto, it passes the control over the main part of
Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding areas to NKR, the author writes
drawing parallels with the situation in Kosovo.

The author also notes that the war had serious humanitarian
consequences. Among the atrocities committed against the Armenians,
the massacres in Sumgait and Baku, as well the Operation Ring – with
the help of which the Azerbaijani forces besieged Nagorno Karabakh in
1991 – stand out with their particular cruelty.

“The tragedy in Khojalu is important because Azerbaijan accuses the
Armenians of committing genocide. According to Helsinki Watch (present
Human Rights Watch: editor’s note), the Azerbaijanis maintained
artillery and rocket launchers in Khojalu using them to bomb
Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno Karabakh. Khojalu, like
Stepanakert, was a civilian area; however, the Azerbaijanis themselves
turned it into a military object making it their firing point.
According to the position of Nagorno Karabakh Republic, they had
warned the population in Azerbaijan about the operation being prepared
in advance and had asked the civilians to leave their homes, though,
according to the testimonies gathered by Helsinki Watch, the
Azerbaijani population did not think that the Armenians would take a
civilian area and remained in their homes. Nonetheless, in the dawn of
26 February, 1992, the Armenians almost completely surrounded Khojalu
leaving a free corridor in the direction of a mountain pass, so that
the population was able to leave. After that the attack began. The
population leaving the village came under fire beyond its boundaries.
The lists of the casualties differ from source to source: from 160
people (several human rights NGOs estimates) to more than 600 (the
number suggested by the Azerbaijani government),” the author notes.

The Armenian side also cites then President of Azerbaijan Ayaz
Mutalibov’s statement who claims that those events could be provoked
by the militarized forces of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan (Heydar
Aliyev’s political party), who prevented the civilians from leaving
Khojalu pursuing the aim to provoke a massacre and bring about
Mutalibov’s overthrow, which happened in the following days.

Azerbaijan considers the incident as ‘genocide.’ However, Helsinki
Watch established that there were armed uniformed soldiers among the
Azerbaijanis leaving Khojalu. “Put in other words, the Azerbaijanis
could have been at least co-participants of the tragedy, using the
civilians as shield,” Solchaga writes pointing out also to the opinion
of Thomas de Waal, an expert on Caucasus, who thinks that the incident
was a result of the disorder that emerged during the withdrawal of the
troops, rather than a plan to eliminate the population (genocide).
Besides, according to the testimony of the Czech journalist Dana
Mazalova, they might have manipulated with the incident to make it
seem graver.

Citing the example of the situation in the Balkans, the author says
that the UN International Court established that the incidents between
the Serbs and the Croatians did not constitute genocide as long as
their aim was not their elimination, but expulsion. Despite that, the
foreign policy of Azerbaijan is pursuing the aim to achieve the
recognition of the events in Khojalu during the war in Karabakh as
‘genocide’, forgetting that they have also committed atrocities
against the Armenians.

For that reason, the government of Mexico, unlike the Parliament, is
maintaining a neutral position regarding the conflict in Karabakh and
supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group. It is noted that
supporting the Azerbaijani position, Mexico also spoiled relations
with Armenia, which became clear when the Foreign Minister of Armenia
Edward Nalbandian during his 2012 visit declared that the actions of
the Mexican parliament and the City Hall of Mexico were not in accord
with the position of the international community, expressed by the
Minsk Group, and have negative impact on the relations between Armenia
and Azerbaijan. On the other hand, Mexico spoiled relations with
Azerbaijan when under justified protests was forced to remove the
monument to Heydar Aliyev from the Friendship Park and the word
‘genocide’ from the monument to the victims of Khojalu. Though the
threats of Azerbaijan to break up the relations did not become
reality, the conflict with that state may have certain consequences.

The author accuses the Parliament and City Hall of Mexico of political
short-sightedness as before making that kind of decisions it was
necessary to consult the Foreign Ministry of the country and not spoil
the image of the state.

“They let themselves to be deceived, and were ready to risk the
international prestige of Mexico for trips to Baku, some caviar and 7
million dollars for the beautification of the city without realizing
the consequences,” the author concludes.

See also: Azerbaijan putting on hold investment projects in Mexico
because of demolition of Heydar Aliyev’s monument

Amal Clooney joins the Ivy League to lecture on human rights law at
Columbia University

16:27, 7 March, 2015

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney will join Columbia Law School as a
visiting faculty member this spring, reportArmenpress sitting to Daily
Mail.

She will be a senior fellow with the Law School’s Human Rights Institute.

Clooney, who is based in London, said in a statement that it was ‘an
honor’ to teach at the Ivy League institution.

‘I look forward to getting to know the next generation of human rights
advocates studying here,’ she said.

Clooney will deliver lectures on human rights law during the current
spring semester.

Lebanese-born Amal Clooney, 37, may have shot into the public eye as
the partner of George Clooney, 53, whom she married in a lavish
Italian ceremony last year, but she has forged a notable career as an
international human rights lawyer.

Among her previous roles she served as an adviser to Kofi Annan in his
role as a United Nations special adviser for Syria.

Clooney also represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in his
extradition proceedings.

Zhoghovurd: Alexander Grigoryan launches business activities in theater

12:53 07/03/2015 >> DAILY PRESS

Alexander Grigoryan, Art Director of K. Stanislavsky Russian Drama
Theater of Yerevan, has turned the theater into a business center,
Zhoghovurd writes.

“Ervin Amiryan, Alexander Grigoryan’s son-in-law, has launched ice
production in the theater. Nora Grigoryan, Alexander Grigoryan’s
daughter, has opened wedding studio 7th Heaven in the vicinity of the
theater. These activities are supervised by Toma Grigoryan, Alexander
Grigoryan’s wife,” the newspaper writes.

Speaking to Zhoghovurd, Alexander Grigoryan said that he has not
launched business activities yet, but he has such plans, and is going
to apply to Minister of Culture Hasmik Poghosyan for permission.

Turkish Intellectuals Who Have Recognized The Armenian Genocide: Ipek Çalislar

By MassisPost
Updated: March 6, 2015

By Hambersom Aghbashian

Ipek Çalislar (born in 1947 in Istanbul), is a Turkish prominent
journalist and writer. After finishing her high school (Ã`sküdar
American High School), she received her education at Ankara
University, Faculty of Political Sciences. She lived in
Hamburg-Germany, 1990-1992, where she researched about `Homosexuality’
and `women and Islam ` issues. In 2003 she visited Iran with her
husband where they met Iranian intellectuals and wrote their book
`Iran: A Man Dictatorship’ in 2004. Ipek Çalislar has worked at the
Turkish Cumhuriyet daily for 12 years and served at the Association
for Education and Supporting Women Candidates (KA-DER), which defends
equal representation of women and men in all fields of life, also at
PEN Turkey. Her first literary book `Latife Hanim’ has been translated
into 11 languages, including Bulgarian, Arabic, German and Albanian.
She wrote also `Halide Edip: Biography of Sigma Women (2008).’ (1)(2).

Ipek Çalislar was tried for her bestselling biography of Atatürk’s
first wife, Latife Hanim, under Article 5816 of the Penal Code for a
passage that described the founder of the Turkish Republic escaping a
life threatening situation in the guise of a woman and she was
acquitted.(3)

A group of Turkish intellectuals signed a petition against a Denialist
Exhibit in Denmark, an exhibition which was planned by the Turkish
embassy to support their point of view concerning the Armenian
Genocide. `Don’t Stand Against Turkey’s Democratization and
Confrontation with its History! ‘ was the message to the Royal Library
of Denmark who has given the Turkish government the opportunity to
present an `alternative exhibit’ in response to the Armenian Genocide
exhibition. Ipek Çalislar was one of the Turkish intellectuals who
signed the petition.(4)

In December 2008, two hundred prominent Turkish intellectuals released
an apology for the `great catastrophe of 1915³. This was a clear
reference to the Armenian Genocide, a term still too sensitive to use
so openly. The signatories also announced a website related to this
apology, and called on others to visit the site and sign the apology
as well. The complete, brief text of the apology says ‘ My conscience
does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the
Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in
1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the
feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters. I apologize to
them.’ Ipek Çalisla was one of the intellectual who signed the
petition which in few days was signed by over 13,000 signatories.(5)

According to , under the title `24
April, the anniversary of the 1915s events, will be remembered this
year in Turkey, too.’, Taraf Newspaper of 20th April 2010 wrote ‘ A
group of intellectuals, among them Ali BayramoÄ?lu, Ferhat Kentel, NeÅ?e
Düzel, Perihan MaÄ?den and Sırrı Süreyya Ã-nder, for the first time in
Turkey, will commemorate this year on 24 April as the anniversary of
the events of 1915, under the leader-ship of `Say Stop!’ group. The
commemoration will start in front of the tram station in Taksim
Square. The group will be dressing in black and carry photos of
massacred Armenian intellectuals who were deported from that station.’
the following abstracts are from the text of the commemoration
activity, `This pain is OUR pain. This mourning is for ALL of US. In
1915, when our population was just 13 million, 1,5 to 2 million
Armenians were living in these lands¦. In April 24, 1915 it was
started `to send them’. We lost them. They are no longer available.
They have not even graves. But the `Great Pain’ of the `Great
Disaster’, with its utmost gravity EXISTS in our pain’. The text was
signed also by Ipek Çalislar.(6)

”””””””””

1-
2- Çalislar
3-
4-
5-
6-

ARMENIE
Les dépenses liées à la défense de l’Arménie en 2014 se sont élevées à
200 milliards de drams

Les dépenses en matière de défense en Arménie en 2014 se sont élevées
à 200 milliards de drams a annoncé le Président Serge Sarkissian.

Il a rappelé que le budget militaire en 1995 était de 19,1 milliards
de drams, en 2005, il a bondi à 64,4 milliards de drams et en 2014 il
a atteint 200 milliards de drams.

> a déclaré le président.

samedi 7 mars 2015,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

Venice Commission President: Parliamentary system of government could
strengthen Armenian democracy

11:47 07/03/2015 » INTERVIEWS

Panorama.am presents an exclusive interview with the President of the
European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) of
the Council of Europe Gianni Buquicchio.

– Mr. Buquicchio, what are some recent main achievements of Venice
Commission, main areas of the work with member states, challenges
ahead?

– Generally one can say the Venice Commission has become an
indispensible partner of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe
who wish to carry out legal and constitutional reforms. When we give
an opinion on a draft legal text, this opinion is taken seriously and
mostly implemented to a considerable extent. If not everything is done
immediately, our recommendations shape the agenda for the future. To
give you an example from ArmeniaÖ The Venice Commission had
considerable influence on the on the 2005 constitutional reform. Those
recommendations of the Commission which were not, or not fully,
implemented in 2005 are now points of departure from the new reform
currently envisaged.

More recently, the Venice commission has become an important actor of
the neighborhood policy of the Council of Europe. We were closely
involved in the drafting of the new constitution of Tunisia and were
able to ensure that it is in line with international standards of
democracy, the rule of law and human rights. To co-operate
successfully with the countries of the Southern Mediterranean such as
Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan will remain of our main challenges in the
next year.

Currently our main priority is Ukraine in making the necessary reforms
with respect to the constitution, the judiciary and electoral
legislation.

Generally speaking the functioning of the judiciary in most countries
of Central and Eastern Europe remains unsatisfactory and we are
involved in judicial reforms in many countries.

– What is the main role of Venice Commission in crafting European law?

– The main role of Venice Commission is not to develop rules of
European law but to assist member states in improving their
legislation based on European standards and experience. Our advice is
based on what we call the European constitutional heritage and we help
to integrate states into the European legal and constitutional space.
The experience of the states we advise then becomes an element of the
European constitutional heritage and in this manner we contribute to
its further development.

We also work closely with constitutional courts, with the
Constitutional court of Armenia being one of main partners, and in
this manner we contribute to these courts taking an approach based on
European standards and experience.

The Venice Commission does not have democratic legitimacy and we
cannot adopt European legal standards. However, in some cases, texts
prepared by the Venice Commission were endorsed by the Committee of
Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly and have become European
standards. The best known case is the Code of good Practice in
Electoral Matters, which has become the main reference text containing
electoral standards in Europe.

– What are some highlights of cooperation with Armenia in the content
of current constitutional reforms?

– First of all I would like to pay tribute to the very professional
character of the work of constitutional reform commission. The
commission took very coherent approach which is well through and based
on the experience of other European countries. It also carried out
public consultations. We had several meetings with the commission and
these meetings resulted in improvements and refinements of the text.

In our opinion the concept paper provides an opportunity for reform
which should not be missed.

The most important element of the concept is the move towards a more
parliamentary system of government. This is a choice for each country
but in our opinion it is a welcome choice which could strengthen
Armenian democracy. The other main element of the concept is to
enshrine the principles of the rule of law more consistently in the
Constitution and strengthen constitutional guarantees for the
implementation of fundamental rights.

– What are some of the main trends of constitutional reforms in Europe?

– Developments are not uniform throughout Europe since national
conditions vary widely. One common trend is that constitutions are
becoming more open towards the integration of international and
European law into the domestic law and towards co-operation with
international and European institutions, accepting limits on national
sovereignty.

In many countries of Eastern Europe there is a tendency towards a more
parliamentary system of government, one of the main topics of the
constitutional reform debated in your country. This trend is not
exclusively found in Eastern Europe. The new Finnish constitution is
also an example where the powers of the President were reduced. There
is also a trend toward strengthening constitutional justice and paying
more attention to guarantees for judicial independence in many
constitutions.

– Thank you so much.
By Anna Lazarian