The “Partnership for Open Society” Initiative organized the presentation of “Monitoring of Legislative Activities of Political Parties of RA Parliament” project results. The presentation took place on October 23, at 14:00 at the Business Center of American University.

The purpose of the project was to monitor the legislative activities of five political parties (Armenian Revolutionary federation, Heritage, Republican, Prosperous Armenia, Rule of Law) represented in Parliament. The project implementers, who include journalists and experts in fields of economy, environment, judiciary/law, information and freedom of conscience and religion, looked at the law-making activities of the NA factions in the light of their appropriateness with the election platforms.  

Lusine Vasilyan, the project director, mentioned in her speech that the implementation of the platforms of political parties has been postponed for at least one year due to global financial crisis and in-country political situation. She as well mentioned that according to their observations the coalition agreements between the parties has been above everything, even their own platforms, principles and approaches.
Mr. Andranik Tevanyan, the expert on economic issues, informed that discussion and adoption of two main draft laws had been observed – the laws on making the self-employed people tax bound and giving local producers privileges over importers and said that there have been deviations from pre-election platforms of some political parties. Mr. V. Ayvazyan, representative of Republican Party and the Chairman of NA Permanent Committee in Economic Issues, said that the first law about imposing taxes on self-employed people has been abolished, while local producers have indeed got privileges over the importers as far as tax payments are concerned. He said that promotion of local producers is one of the cornerstones of their platform.

Talking about judicial and law issues, Mr. Ara Zohrabyan, Deputy Chairman of RA Chamber of Advocates, informed that while the salaries of prosecutors and other respective officials have been doubled, that of the judges has not been raised. Moreover, it has been decided that the salaries of judges should come from state budget. He expressed fear that in this case the judiciary will not be independent from the executive authority. He also mentioned that the criminal and professional courts have been liquidated due to their inefficient work.

Talking about Environmental issues, Ms. Karine Danielyan mentioned that except for Heritage party, no other party had prioritized environmental issues in their platforms. She was particularly concerned with water release from Lake Sevan.

Mr. Mesrop Haroutyunyan, who was monitoring the legislative activities of parties related to freedom of speech, informed that all parties except the Republican had attached importance to freedom of speech in their pre-election platforms. He mentioned that two regressive amendments had been made to respective laws. One of them is the amendments adopted on September 10, 2008 on the law on TV/radio broadcasting which prohibits providing licenses to broadcasting companies alleging that the government is getting ready for digitalization, and the other one was adoption of the disgraceful amendment package ratified on April 28, 2009.

Lastly, Mr. Stepan Danielyan, the Chairman of Collaboration of Democracy, who was on expert group of the project, talked about the law on freedom of conscience which had been inherited from USSR times. He said that though Armenia had joined a number of international treaties, the law had not been reviewed till recently and that the apostolic church always attempts to limit the activities of other denominations. On March 19 of 2009 the law on freedom of conscience has been adopted at first reading despite having provisions that contradict the RA constitution. The Venice Commission provided negative feedback on the law.

The representatives of ARF party suggested highlighting sharp social issues for Ministers and National Assembly and not to criticize them too much, while the representative of Rule of Law party suggested monitoring the activities of NA Commissions to have a better picture of what is happening. He said that except for the laws mentioned by Andranik Tevanyan, ARF has adhered to their platform.

Ms. Larisa Alaverdyan, a Member of Parliament, mentioned that the project had great demand; it had clear objectives and was implemented in a good manner. She suggested as well assessing the platforms of political parties or their separate portions in future and do not just compare the platform with legislative activities. There was also a suggestion to the project team by several people to actively participate in the discussion of National Assembly Committees.