Minister of Justice David Harutyunyan touched upon the sensational draft of the Prevention of Domestic Violence during the talk with reporters in the National Assembly.
Many Republicans are against this project, and after the council meeting discussion, they warned that if the draft remained in that form, they would vote against it. Whether the Republicans were convinced, or provisions of the draft were changed, David Harutyunyan replied, “Of course, since this law received a furious reaction from the public, every word and every letter was tried to be interpreted, and sometimes interpreted not so reasonably. But every written law has a certain basis”.
The Minister noted that sometimes the discussion of the draft was brought to an absurdity, such as, “if I do not allow my child to go out, am I depriving him of liberty?”, etc. David Harutyunyan said that many criticisms were not justified, if there were such spatial interpretations, the Criminal Code could also be unreasonably interpreted: “It is very difficult to dispel concerns if they are concerned, so now I am trying to show that the concerns are not relevant by changing the formulations. Now, some work is being carried out in order to dispel suspicions so that the law is not interpreted unreasonably”.
In response to the question, whether they have not dispelled Republicans’ concerns, since Vice Speaker of the National Assembly Eduard Sharmazanov had noted that they are for the strength of traditional families, and there were still concerns about many provisions, David Harutyunyan said, that hasty conclusions should not be made, first, the changes that have been made in the draft should be presented and only then conclusions can be drawn. The Minister noted that the ECHR has precedent decisions that the country has not taken any steps to protect its victim and that regardless of adopting the law or not, the country has a responsibility: “We are members of the Council of Europe and we have to oblige the court’s decisions. I don’t want to make the issue primitive, and a basis for our relations with the EU. This is our duty and we have already signed many international documents in this regard, since 1993”.
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
