“No one can be arrested for his political opinions , in such a case the detainee is a political prisoner,” to Aravot.am’s question about her assessment of the detention of some members of the Founding Parliament also given the opinion that some human rights’ defenders call them political prisoners, PACE President Anne Brasseur expressed this opinion. It’s worth noting that Anne Brasseur is in Armenia on an official visit on 13-15 April. Aravot.am had an exclusive opportunity of having an interview with the PACE President. During our talk Ms Brasseur noted that she did not have elements to judge, but emphasized, “Nobody in the 47 member states of the PACE can be arrested or detained for his political opinion because we have freedom of expression and freedom of association.
The most important is that there is independent judiciary and we have very good cooperation with Armenia to train the judges”. To our next question whether the Armenian authorities take sufficient steps to implement their commitment of identifying the culprits of March 1 crime and bringing them to account, Ms. Brasseur did not provide any clear-cut answer mentioning, “Armenian authorities need enough time to properly carry out transparent, impartial, comprehensive investigation. Thus, this is not only the problem of the political leadership, but also of independent judiciary.” Reference was also made to constitutional reforms initiated by the President of Armenia.
We were interested that despite the fact that some political parties are against the constitutional reforms, nevertheless, the President of Armenia is determined to implement them; so will it be acceptable for the PACE if modifications are implemented in the conditions of insufficient consolidation, although its necessity was emphasized by the Venice Commission, Anne Brasseur answered, “You can never reach complete unanimity. It’s up to the country itself to decide which governance system to choose. We emphasize that all constitutional reforms have to be in line with the standards of the Council of Europe. That means that the Venice Commission has to give its opinion and that opinion has to be followed. I reiterate that there must be large debate on constitutional reforms and political consolidation.”
Tatev HARUTYUYNYAN
