Parliament of Armenia determines ombudsman appointment procedure – ‘taking opposition’s opinion into account’
Armenia’s National Assembly (NA) adopted today by a majority of votes a bill on amendments to the NA decision on the number, names, and scope of activity of the committees of the National Assembly of the 5th convocation.
On January 29 the parliament’s standing committee on state and legal affairs chaired by Hovhannes Sahakyan held a sitting to discuss a draft on amendments to the Law on the Rules of Procedure of the NA. By a decision of the committee, the agenda of the NA sittings due to start on February 1 included a draft decision stemming from the changes made to the Constitution of Armenia as a result of the December 6, 2015 referendum. Based on it, the candidate for Armenia’s Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) is nominated not by the NA, but by the Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs.
Yet the opposition MPs of the Standing Committee spoke against such a procedure, noting that members of the faction of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) constitute a majority of that standing committee so the candidate for ombudsman would be proposed by the pro-government political force. H. Sahakyan accepted the arguments and said that an agreement would probably be reached at the plenary session of NA and an option acceptable to all would be adopted.
At today’ s sitting of the parliament, H. Sahakyan said prior to the vote on the decision that Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs took note of all the proposals and remarks made, but they were not adopted and therefore only one candidate for ombudsman will be presented at the plenary sitting of NA.
“For example, there was a proposal for factions to nominate their candidates for ombudsman, but we didn’t accept that proposal since our Committee is composed of members of all the factions and they could put up their own candidates. Another proposal was to put up two candidates for ombudsman at the plenary sitting of the parliament, but this option was also rejected as inexpedient because Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs has already conducted discussions, while during plenary sittings MPs can only express an opinion in favor or against,” Sahakyan said.
Member of ‘Heritage’ opposition faction Zaruhi Postanjyan said for her part that competition and an opportunity of choice is ruled out in this case. “In this way we cannot make a choice between the candidates,” she said.
In response to her remark, RPA deputy Vardan Aivazyan said that in accordance with the adopted draft constitutional amendments, a person who collects three-fifths of MPs’ votes is elected Human Rights Defender, and votes of opposition MPs are also needed for this.
To remind, Armenian Ombudsman Karen Andreasyan resigned on January 12. In a Facebook statement, he thanked his colleagues for joint work, expressing hope that human rights protection will remain a priority of Armenian society and state.