The document
on constitutional amendments of Armenia signed on 24 of June has been appeared
in the Internet site of the CE Commission of Venice.These are coordinated
conclusions at which they arrived in Strasbourg on 23-24 of June as a result of
working meeting of the Commission of Venice and Armenian authorities. According
to it the following amendments must be made in the project of constitutional amendments
adopted by first reading. Guarantees of independence must be determined for the
Protector of Human Rights. It must be determined that the Protector will be appointed
by the 3/5 votes of the deputies of the Parliament. The term of his authority
must be determined for six years. They have come to an agreement round the principle
that the National Assembly must participate in the process of appointing the bodies
that regulate the activities of mass media. In most probability it is spoken about
the National Committee of Television and Radio and the Council of National Tele-radio
Company. The Armenian authority, according to this document, has promised to submit
a proposal how this principle will be realized.There are a lot of coordinated
conclusions, which refer to the separation of the authorities. The position of
inviolability of the President must be reviewed to include two principles: the
President will only have functional inviolability and he can’t be prosecuted besides
the special process of impeachment.The President of the republic won’t save
the commission of dismissing the Prime Minister. This can be realized only by
the vote of no confidence of the Parliament. The President must appoint the Prime
Minister only in that case if the latter enjoys the confidence of the majority
of the NA deputies. But the President must have right to suggest the Parliament
to dissolve the government. The President keeps the commission to hold and head
the sittings of the government but if issues of foreign policy, defense and national
security will be discussed there. The government and President must carry out
together the foreign policy.Mechanisms for providing the independence of juridical
authority have been proposed. The appointment and dismissal of prosecutors must
be realized on the instructions of the public prosecutor. The President can’t
appoint or dismiss judges without appropriate conclusion of the Council of Justice.
The sittings of the Council of Justice must lead the chairman of Court of Appeal
but without the right of voting. As regards the local self-governing the principle
must be adopted by the Constitution that Yerevan is a community the head of which
will be elected according to the European principles of local self-governing.
The President mustn’t have right to appoint the mayor of Yerevan. The terms
during of which the amendments must be realized are also determined. Tigran Torosian
must produce the Commission of Venice the reviewed project of amendments at the
latest of July 7. And the above-mentioned proposals must be included in the project
produced for the second reading. The working group of the Commission of Venice
will produce a conclusion on the reviewed project at the latest of July 20. After
it our authorities must realize further reforms and produce the final text to
the parliament till the end of August. The third reading must be realized as soon
as possible for holding the constitutional referendum in provided period, in November
2005…. "In my opinion the developments are promising", – the special
representative of the CE secretary general Boyana Uromova who appointed in that
post in April 2005 said about that term. And when we were interested whether she
was agree with the appraisals that the new project would be better than the designed
one in 2001 and Armenia can be the first in democratic developments in the region
and even more it can try to put on the agenda in the CE the issue of stopping
the monitoring in Armenia Boyana Uromova said: "The most part of these declarations
has been made during last weeks. And I’ll be the last one in that parade. I’m
a new person in these discussions and I’d like all these to have its natural course.
I won’t make any interpretation, which will oppose to the expressed optimism.
Let’s wait and see what will happen."Anna Israelian