The Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs of the National Assembly and the Standing Committee on European Integration of the National Assembly on June 5 organized parliamentary hearings on the issue on extraordinary public report of the Human Rights Defender on 2008, February 19 presidential elections and post electoral developments.Representatives of the international, public, law-enforcement organizations, mass media, and candidates for the President of the Republic of Armenia were invited to the hearings.
Opening the parliamentary hearings, Mr. Mkhitar Mnatsakanyan, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs of the National Assembly said that the extraordinary report of the Human Rights Defender received the attention of public and political forces. Mr. Mnatsakanyan said that the parliamentary hearings are important in the aspect of listening and discussing the views of the sides, and expressed hope that they will promote the realization of the dialogue. It was noted that Mr. Armen Harutyunyan, Human Rights Defender, Mr. Aghvan Hovsepyan, Prosecutor General and Mr. Gevorg Danielyan, Minister of Justice will take floor.
Mr. Armen Harutyunyan, Human Rights Defender in his speech noted that the presidential elections of February 19, 2008 and the post-electoral developments essentially influenced all the spheres of the public life of our country, hence they also reflected all the situation of defense and protection of human and citizen’s personal, political, social-economic rights. Being guided by the provisions of the second part of the article 17 of the Law of the Republic of Armenia, on April 21, 2008 Mr. Harutyunyan presented an extraordinary public report in which the dynamic of the change of the social - psychological atmosphere of the pre-electoral period in the conditions of impossibility of reception of the objective information on electoral processes, the basic principles of its formation are exposed.
It was noted that a part of the report was devoted to the analysis of the legislative core results, promoting the formation of atmosphere of the voting day, reveals the peculiarities of post electoral developments, the Defender’s activity is presented during the post electoral developments, related to the elimination of violation of human and citizen’s rights. Mr. Harutyunyan noted that the report aimed to discuss the issues, the solution of which could promote to overcome the public’s cleavage, to create conditions for productive protection of human rights. But instead of the answers to the issues, lifted in the report and interested the public, objections of the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia and the Minister of Justice, were received, which not only have eliminated the concerns, on the issues forwarded in the report, but also have caused new issues. According to him the authors of the objections of the Prosecutor General and the Minister of Justice a number of times have misrepresented the content of the report. Instead of answering to the forwarded questions they took position of offended. According to him the texts of objections are full of distortions. Mr. Harutyunyan noted that the core stone of objections is that the Defender has exceeded his authorities, while the publication of the report.
Summarizing the opinion he noted that while analyzing the developments, concerning the presidential elections in the report the very circumstance is taken into consideration that numerous objective problems, current in the country, promoted the formation of the developed pre-electoral and post electoral situation, which didn’t get their relevant solution yet, in the result of which dissatisfaction was born in public.The obvious social and economic polarization, the current public mistrust to public and, especially, towards the law enforcement bodies, the super centralization of authority, inefficient action of the mechanism of checks and balances between the three branches of the authority, insufficient guarantees of human and citizens’ rights and the formation of the closed system of the privileged layer incited a tangible part to seek strict and turning changes for giving solutions these problems.
According to him a demand of extreme activities was formed within the voluminous mass. A constructive opposition is only possible in a society having a political system organized with democratic principles. In the majority of the transitive countries, including Armenia, the internal political stability basically was provided by means of the system of checks and balances between the three branches of authority as well as by any institute of the authority in this case – by the dominance of the President. Mr. Harutyunyan noted that the public of Armenia today faces alternative - to develop in a direction of maintenance and strengthening of democratic values and institutes or to go through a way of strengthening or preservation of authoritative tendencies of authority, deepening the barrier between authorities and the majority of the society.
At the end the speaker said that the examination of the objections of the Prosecutor General and the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia, related to the extraordinary public report of the Defender of human rights of the Republic of Armenia on presidential elections on February 19, 2008 and post electoral developments allows to conclude that the questions and arguments forwarded in the report were frequently out from the context, were deformed and are extremely brought to critical character of the objections. It can be considered as another display of intolerance.
The Prosecutor General Mr. Aghvan Hovsepyan noted that the report is more a political document than a legal one, through which the practical value is belittled. And as a number of issues in the report directly or indirectly refer to the Prosecutor General, therefore the Prosecutor general has presented his position and explanations as objections. According to him the Prosecutor’s office would have reacted to the report, otherwise it would have been considered that it indirectly admits the submitted reasoning and comments, that in its turn it would deepen the wrong opinion on objective state of affairs, developed in the society. The Prosecutor general noted that the objections were of legal character and obviously erroneous legal estimations and comments in the report were analyzed. According to the Prosecutor General, the Defender had to give the relevant state bodies, in that number the Prosecutor’s Office opportunity of clarifying, substantiating their position totally, related to the complaints of different citizens and on the results of their consideration. According to the law, the Defender would have sent all the complaints and related to them the results of the examination and discussion legal bodies, whereas he failed in doing his duty. According to the Prosecutor General the law also demands the Defender to realize examinations, whereas the Defender’s considerations and conclusions on separate complaints and circumstances of criminal case are subjective, of political character and are not based on multilateral, complete, objective researches and estimations, as well as on comparison of the results of investigation.
Touching upon the issue on legitimacy of the report of the Defender, the Prosecutor noted thatin spite of the importance of his status as independent and irreplaceable official, he is authorized to carry out only such actions, which are authorized by the Constitution or laws. According to him, in the preface of the report the Defender as a base of the extraordinary report specifies, that “the content and the structure of the report were conditioned by the aim of the complex analysis of the presidential elections and post electoral developments,” which was not designed as a base of presentation of extraordinary report by the law. According to the Prosecutor General the reasoning in the report do not relate to the functions of the Defender of human rights. He noted that in the objections of the Prosecutor there are mainly presented the analysis of the activities of the legal issues, trying to be far from the political assessments as far as it is possible. And thus he explained that not all the questions of the Defender were touched upon in the objections.
According to the Prosecutor as "incontestable" proofs in the report were presented published in mass media various and uncertain anonymous data, mainly based on publications seeking propaganda goals.
According to him the Defender was guided only by subjective observations and comments, which were not checked in the context of comparison of actual circumstances and proofs, received through criminal cases. It was supposed, that the Defender should at least compare the information from informal sources to information and explanation passed official process and explanations and only then should have to carry out analysis and moreover to draw conclusions. The Prosecutor General brought concrete examples from the report to prove what he said.
He also regarded considerable theoriginal comments of separate legislative and especially criminal - remedial norms by the Defender, which simply contradict the direct meaning of the law.
At the end the Prosecutor said that as the institute of the Defender of human rights is yet in its realization stage, thus as a Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia does not only demand, propose or persuade but he asks as a citizen the Defender to act within the framework of legislation of the Republic of Armenia, by implementation of well known international principles and norms.
Mr. Gevorg Danielyan, Minister of Justice said that the goal of their objections was not that they found a mistake in the Defender’s consideration but that such document is not possible to be discussed through existing procedures. The Minister of Justice opposed with arguments, that there were no misrepresentations, and distortions and that neither the Justice Minister nor the Prosecutor General forwarded a goal of teaching the Defender what to talk about or what not.They are convinced that the extraordinary report is an official document, a financed function by the state budget, therefore questions should be forwarded within the framework of the report, which could be discussed through the very procedures, which are stipulated by law. The Minister is ready to display more support to the Defender in realizing his activity from now on.
Mr. Aram Safaryan, secretary of PAP faction noted that assessing the social-economic, political realities and paying appreciable attention to the psychological condition of the society, the Defender of human rights could have included more circles of considerations.It was necessary to study, how the growth of hatred was possible, which began to cover more and more impressive groups of the society. Whether steps were taken to study the issue of responsibility and behavior of each person during the event of March 1st .It was noted that the expert observers, working for the faction PAP also could undertake own investigation and try to find answers to the questions concerning all the society.Why they failed to do it. They waited for the creation of independent investigator, required in the resolution 1609. From the very beginning the PAP was for the creation of that body, corresponding to the standard formulated in the resolution, and has nothing against it will be an ad hoc committee in the National Assembly.Mr. Safaryan noted that it was obvious that the activity of the independent body can be considered useful only then when giving a fair answer to all the questions on the causes and results of the events of March1st, at the same time to create conditions for creating political consent and an atmosphere of political consensus. He assured that the legal and political assessment of the events of March 1st should be given for excludingthe display of civil disobedience, for suppression of all anarchies and mass infringements of the social order in the country from now on.
On the way to public consent the PAP is for the dialogue and ideological and political argument with all the political forces, including non-parliamentary forces, representing the radical opposition forces, aiming not to allow the political protest to grow into destructions and shatter of the state. According to them the investigations and judicial trials on this case should be ended before the summer session of PACE. The international community and the society should have full information- who for what is condemned, and the political prisoners, if they are, should be released.
At the end Mr. Safaryan noted that their questions, related to the analysis in the report of the Defender, did not tend to counteract the Defender, but they should be considered as invitation to compare the present professional opportunities and to use the intellectual potential for the creation of analytical document more positive and serving to its specific goal.
Mr. Ara Nranyan, representing the view of the ARF faction, said that the artificial strengthening of the argument of the Defender of human rights- Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Armenia – Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia is not acceptable. Such arguments should promote the reform, realization of the institutions of statehood and the increase of the trust of the society towards their activity.According to him the report of the Defender is full of the examinations of psychological phenomena and the analysis of the political process. Similar provisions make vulnerable the report of the Defender as the relevant specialists should do such examinations and the political parties and figures should deal with the issue of the political assessments. By legislation the main issue of the Defender is the discussion of the complaints on the violation of human rights and freedoms, envisaged by the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, laws, international agreements as well as the principles of international rights and norms. During all this time rights of thousands of citizens were violated, beginning from illegal meetings and rallies and pressure towards the citizens or the substantiation of the accusation of the arrested citizens. In this aspect it would be desirable for the report of the Defender to answer those questions. The ARF faction expects more rigid, argued, impregnable work from the Defender, from the legal point of view and from the citizens’ view a consecutive and effective work towards their protection of rights. Mr. Nranyan noted that they highly assess the civil boldness and courage of the Defender of human rights. Though the report is vulnerable, nevertheless it is a published position. It was noted that till now only the ARF has expressed own complete position on the events happened. According to Mr. Nranyan the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Armenia and the Ministry of Justice pointed out the shortcomings of the report of the Defender, while the detailed comment and the assessment of these bodies on the events happened are necessary.
Mr. Artashes Avoyan, presenting the view of the CL faction, said that the institute of the Defender of human rights is the most important of the democratic institutions in civilized society. But the institute is yet very young in our country, not realized and it has not formed traditions. According to him the Defender’s international experience isn’t appropriated totally by our society, at the same time the image of Armenian model of the Defender isn’t formed yet, and we face a problem and we face a threat when this powerful and respectable institute to become an arena of criticism and unreasonable judgments. By his assessment the report presents claim for the reception ofpublic sonority, foreven more strengthening the intensity, and making the situationimpasse, not giving any possible solution and distinct assessment.
By the assurance of the CL faction the Defender of human rights is the defender of all the citizens of Armenia, and gives distinct limits in the report and assesses the electoral mass around this or that candidate for the President. Mr. Avoyan counts admissible the summary basic offer of the report of the Defender, related to the creation of the independent committee, studying the ways of overcoming the inter political situation related to the events taken place after the presidential elections in the Republic of Armenia. At the end of his speech Mr. Avoyan said that the discussions, taken place lately, including also this parliamentary hearings come to guaranteethe conflicts should be solved through tolerance and dialogue, otherwise, extremism is neither good for our citizens, nor the state.
Mr. Rafik Petrosyan presented the view of the RPA faction. According to him instead of having close cooperation with theGeneral Prosecutor's Office, Ministry of Justice, in his extraordinary report the Defender focused on the legislative shortcomings and criticized police, Prosecutor's Office and other officials. The Defender involuntarily was adapted to the position of the opposition, illegally aiming power, and involuntarily promoting already hot atmosphere in Armenia. According to him the Defender in his report would have been very cautious in his comments and political considerations not giving stimulus the dissentient opposition for its further malicious activity. According to Mr. Rafik Petrosyan, the most important issue is the previously announced state programs that have been intensively directed towards improvements in the standards of living, prevention in social polarization and establishing tolerance and public trust in the country were ignored. At the end Mr. Petrosyan noted that the report of the Defender also has a precautionary value. It is important for the next time similar report would be substantiated logically as well as in the legal point of view.
In his final speech Mr. Aghvan Hovhannesyan, Prosecutor General, presented criminal data,noting that there were 35 accused, towards who other precautionary measures were chosen. In addition 40 persons are under arrest, accused of other criminal activities. Of 71 persons sent to court, 65 criminal cases have been heard of which 28 Judgments have already been ‘laid down’.Of these 28 Judgments, 10 were imprisoned, and 18 conditionally imprisoned.17 accused from the 28 have completely admitted their crimes and their accusations are forwarded.
Mr. Armen Harutyunyan, Defender of human rights said that no one is perfect and said that the next report, if needed, will be better.
Summing up the hearings, Mr. Mkhitaryan, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia thanked for long and detailed debates, which will promote the realization of democracy in Armenia and the protection of human rights.
