“The government has chosen the path of minding its pocket; that is why they are making that kind of amendments to the law,” Mikayel Danielyan, a human rights advocate, said during a conversation with www.aravot.am, talking about the discussions on the Alternative Service Law Amendment Bill and the Criminal Code Enactment Bill. Then he added: “The problem is that the existing law doesn’t comply with the international standards to such an extent that those people refuse to serve in the army. And they want to make these changes so that the Republic of Armenia doesn’t pay more than a hundred thousand euros to the European Court. They are taking that step only for that, not to amend the existing law, or all of them are democrats. I cannot but talk about our Justice Minister’s statement, which is nonsense. He says that national security and human rights are interconnected. Since when, who said that? Human rights don’t depend on national, state ideology and generally anything. The law should be amended substantially and seriously.” Edmon Marukyan, a member of the National Assembly, thinks, on the other hand, that the above-mentioned bill is the guarantee of solving problems in the field and adds: “As a result of the amendments to the law, the system will be reformed, which will make it possible for persons who cannot serve in the army based on their religion or other beliefs to do an alternative military or labor service. Those persons who are in correctional facilities at the moment, are condemned for refusing to serve in the army will be released and their criminal records will be expunged. And if their cases are currently being considered by court, all those cases will be closed. This testifies to the fact that this act will have a serious impact on 80 people. The second step will be that in accordance with the mentioned act, they will apply for and do an alternative military service. If this bill is adopted, the criminal records of those people will be expunged, what more can we do? Certainly, it is not ruled out that new problems might arise while enforcing the new act. Basically it has arrived late, since so many people were imprisoned, we paid money to the European Court, made compensation etc.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
