Currently, state taxation and customs bodies officers are free to join political parties. According to the law, state taxation and customs bodies officers are not entitled to join or found political parties. However, why put limits on their rights to take part in Armenian politics? The RA government has made a proposal to the parliament to revise the mentioned law and exclude the limitations for taxation and customs officers to join political parties. Now it is up to NA deputies to decide.
We wonder why the Armenian government granted taxation and customs officers granted the right to join political parties. The reason is the fact that the mentioned limitation contradicts Article 28 of the RA Constitution. The provision states that all citizens have a right to found and join parties with other citizens.
The right to join political parties may be limited for military, police, national security, prosecutor’s department officers, as well as judges and members of the Constitutional Court.
Taxation and customs officers are not included in the mentioned list of officers that have limitations to advocating political parties. This means that the provision in the law on taxation and customs officers and their service that sets limits on their right to advocate political parties contradicts the Constitution.
However, the mentioned provision also contradicts the “previous” Constitution, which states the following: “…each citizen has a right to form political parties and join them. This right may be limited for officers serving in army forces and police”. This provision does not state anything about taxation and customs officers, i.e. the law did not include them. Otherwise, it turns out that the RA law on taxation and customs officers has always been contradicting the Constitution since 2002. There are two explanations why the government has decided to give back the voting rights of those officers. Either they have just seen that contradiction or the category of the taxation and customs officers is included in the police category. If so, we wonder how these two bodies were separated taking into consideration the new Constitution. If they mean the higher ranks, there are such ranks in the customs department as well.