As we have already informed, a short while ago, a few specialists of Gyumri Town Hall who had been fired recently told www.aravot.am that they were going to withdraw from membership of the Republican Party in protest, since, according to them, the RPA couldn’t defend the party members’ rights against the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) mayor. Let us note that this is about the people who became members of the Republican Party during Vardan Ghukasyan’s tenure and whom newly-elected mayor Samvel Balasanyan has fired.
We communicated their complaint to Sahak Minasyan, the RPA Shirak office manager, asking him whether it wasn’t possible to interfere and defend his fellow party members’ rights, since people shouldn’t be divided into supporters of Vardan and supporters of Samvel, and at the end of the day, Gyumri wasn’t some mayor’s private property to fire or hire anyone he wanted. Sahak Minasyan said first of all that no one had turned to their office regarding that issue. “A representative of any party – the RPA, the PAP, the Armenian National Congress (ANC) or the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) – has all reasons to defend his constitutional rights in our country. They could file a complaint with the superior body [in this case, the official means the regional administration, N. A.], attaching the written response of the employer, in this case the Gyumri mayor. The superior body would consider the complaint, and if they had been fired without reason, it would urge the mayor to reinstate them, if that reason was contentious, they would give respective legal advice, and in the end, the person would decide whether to file a complaint in court or not. However, exploiting the party membership particularly when they haven’t informed the RPA town and regional offices is inappropriate. In any case, we are ready to listen to the problem of any employee who has been fired and to help deal with any legal issue.
“We are not going to sponsor representatives of the ruling party without respective legal grounds or make them privileged. On the contrary, I think our fellow party members should stand out for their devotion to work and abidance by the law. Blackmail or other kinds of exploitation shrouded in a veil of demands are unacceptable for us,” the RPA Shirak office manager warned.
Nune AREVHSATYAN
