After the six deputies of the “People’s Deputy” group denied that the had signed their names on the document to be sent to the Constitutional Court (CC) they were called to the President’s office and threatened that if they accept their signatures, they will suffer the consequences. And when the police suddenly “visited” NA Deputy Gagik Avetyan’s house they wanted to show that this is one of the consequences perhaps connected with the fact that Avetyan accepted his signature.
However making those deputies refuse their signatures was not very logical because the “People’s Deputy” Group found a shorter way to send their appeal-letter to the CC-through the Ombudsman, who is authorized to apply to the CC without 27 Deputy signatures. Yesterday the “People’s Deputy” group deputies, along with the residents of Buzand street went to have a meeting with Armenia’s Ombudsman, Armen Harutyunyan, who had promised them that he will solve the issue prior to his elections as an Ombudsman.
Before Harutyunyan was elected Ombudsman he had a meeting with our group, the first question was how he was going to solve the issue of the residents of Buzand street. He promised to try to solve that issue. Vladimir Badalyan and Vahram Baghdasaryan themselves raised this issue and appealed to Ombudsman,” said the Chairman of the group, Karen Karapetyan and added, “Now Harutyunyan is elected and we have discussed this issue with him. At present we have invited the first party- the residents- to have a direct communication with the second party- the state, on behalf of the Ombudsman. We are just mediating their dialog on behalf of the solution of the issue. The method that was originally chosen was very complicated. Months have passed but nothing was changed. Now we have proposed a short method to the Ombudsman to apply to the CC and we will keep track on the process.”
Karapetyan, also answered, “The petition was the opposition’s idea and our group did not have any approach on the issue at that time. But the solution to the issue has been delayed, and I think it would be better if the initiators kept the deputies aware of the issue before sending the letter/appeal to the CC. However, before that, as I already mentioned, we have already talked to the Ombudsman. This means, regardless of the opposition’s solution, we have our own. We discussed this issue and found out that it is possible to raise it at CC through a shorter route. Only due to our initiative could we discuss this with the Ombudsman, who is supposed to protect human rights. Therefore, it is not necessary to have 27 signatures.” Karapetyan, considers this initiative normal and the group, as a political unit, applied the short route without waiting for the petition of the opposition. “It has been nine months since the opposition has had the petition, but the issue of the residents has not been solved. Our goal is to solve these people’s issues by using our logic. Sometimes we politicians like to show that we are doing something, but in reality we don’t do anything. By doing this we don’t want to degrade the opposition. We have our own method and we will solve the issue by our own methods,” he said.
Karapetyan thinks that it is primitive and unreasonable to assume that refusing signatures is due to threats because, their deputy group has discussed this issue with the Ombudsman. “We want to organize this ourselves, meanwhile taking into account the fact that Vladimir Badalyan is the Deputy of Kentron community. We think that we should solve this issue ourselves. And the people that spread rumors, claiming that the deputies were threatened, are “pampered”, not us. Moreover, I would say that it is an order, I just don’t know who is giving that order.”
Also, during his meeting with the “Peoples Deputy” group and the residents of Buzand Street, Harutyunyan promised to personally apply to the CC, since many people think that he would not dare to process the issue of the residents because he might be afraid of the president. Yesterday we decided to personally speak to Harutyunyan. He ensured that he has looked over this issue and he feels that there is enough evidence to apply to the CC.
The first Ombudsman of Armenia, Larissa Alaverdyan, said that she kind of doubts Harutyunyan’s intention to solve the issue because, it is one thing to follow-up, another thing to solve. Harutyunyan said, “The former Ombudsman mainly focused on sub-legislative acts, which is the government’s job. But I will also present some legislative acts which, of course, is up to the National Assembly. This means that we are going to discuss a constitutional issue.” Harutyunyan also mentioned that, he will go until the end.
Now it’s time to wait and see just how Harutyunyan is going to solve the issue of Buzand Street.