Human Rights Defender Karen Andreasyan, talking about commentaries in the press regarding his two newly-appointed deputies, according to which Article 22 of the Human Rights Defender Act that provided for having a deputy of the defender, was declared void as early as in 2006, during a conversation with journalists today, said that he hadn’t violated the law by employing them. Although the Human Rights Defender had, besides one chief advisor, another two advisors and deputies, K. Andreasyan assured that there was a need for two deputies, “We also have 30 lawyers and if we use that logic, we may say ‘what even one lawyer or advisor will do?’ We have many workers in the staff, all of whom do one thing; they protect human rights in different fields. Each of them does it using different methodology. Some of them do it, provided personal applications, some of them do a systemic research, legislation research, others provide legal representation, work with NGOs and cooperate with international organizations. The two deputies of mine share that responsibility with me, which the law allows.”
We reminded Mr. Andreasyan that human rights advocate Artur Sakunts had said that the Human Rights Defender was a disoriented person and he hadn’t realized what he should do exactly yet. In Mr. Sakunts’s opinion, that was probably the reason why the Human Rights Defender applied to various NGOs. Mr. Andreasyan refused to comment on Sakunts’s opinion, he just added, “It is his personal opinion, which has the right to exist.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
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