Ministry of Justice circulated a bill proposing a change in article 421 of the criminal code and imposing strict penalties for attempting to violate sovereignty. The bill offers a punishment of 12-15 years of prison for “relinquishing sovereignty with actions fully or partially aimed to restrict the sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia in favor of another state or an international or supranational organization by using violence or threats of violence”. They have not forgotten those who make public claims against sovereignty. To note, even though the introduction and reasoning of the document contain mentions of the public claims, the part of the change itself does not.
Theoretically, of course, everything is correct: people who wish to deprive our state of sovereignty with violence, deserve way more than 15 years, I would rather they get life imprisonment. However, in the case of the “public claims,” things are not that unambiguous: a number of expressions can or cannot be called “claims’ ‘. For example, I would like to see Armenia as a member of the EU, a supranational organization. Should expressing such a wish be considered a crime?
Whether we are sovereign or not, does not concern the majority of our citizens, I suppose. But the emergence of such a bill is justified, as, after the defeat in the war, the Armenian sovereignty has endured way more hardships than during the last 29 years. Perhaps I would agree with the idea that one of the reasons for the war was the Russian aspiration to provide its military presence in Artsakh, which, naturally, made us more dependent and limited our sovereignty. This does not belittle the degree of our responsibility before the war, which was, to put it mildly, frivolous.
But if such a law does get enforced, it will not have as much of a practical significance as propagandistic. It will grant an opportunity for the governmental propagandists to proclaim their “favorite” thesis of the “Fifth columnists”. According to that propagandistic scheme, an ambition every opponent of the current government has is to shove Armenia into Russia’s Union State. Bringing this plan into existence will give freedom for those propagandists to exclaim pathetically “A law exists, does it not? What are our law enforcement officers busy with?” after every speech they are not very fond of.
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But the fascinating part is the following circumstance: if Pashinyan’s government does decide to join Armenia with some kind of “Rusian-Belarus” in order to assert his authority, the same (so-called west-orientated) propagandists will say “Well, what could he possibly do, the previous government is the one to blame”. And the subject of the issue, the article of the criminal code, will not work, as it is intended for the “claims”, why would it be intended for the conjoinment?
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
