It’s been two days since the MPs of the Heritage faction are negotiating with other MPs in the corridors of the National Assembly. They were trying to persuade the MPs to convene an extraordinary NA session on the NA MPs Sasun Michaelyan, Hakob Hakobyan and Myasnik Malkhasyan, who were deprived of immunity.
Reminder: The National Assembly doesn’t want to hear political prisoners Sasun Michaelyan, Myasnik Malkhasyan and Hakob Hakobyan who were deprived of their liberty a year ago without any substantial reasons. The “Heritage” party has not been able to collect 44 signatures to convene an NA extraordinary session. Within 24 hours, Zaruhi Postanjyan knocked doors of all NA deputies and wasn’t able to collect 11 signatures. Three deputies who are currently political prisoners, six members of “Heritage”, independent deputy Victor Dallakyan and Republican Tigran Torosyan participated in the petition. The political prisoners had called on the National Assembly to convene an extraordinary session with them and Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan. The deputies deprived of their liberty were planning to substantiate their innocence and demand explanations from the Prosecutor General for the charges. As of yesterday besides the three jailed MPs the initiative was signed by six MPs from the Heritage Raffi Hovhannisian, Larisa Alaverdyan, Anahit Bakhshyan, Zaruhi Postanjyan, Armen Martirosyan and Vardan Khachatryan. Independent MPs Victor Dallakyan and Tigran Sargsyan also signed the initiative. According to Postanjyan they demand from the NA to discuss and consider invalid the March 2 2008 decision of the NA, according to which the mentioned three MPs were deprived of immunity. “Let the prosecutor come and bring up clarifications why they keep the MPs in jail without any accusations,” claims Vardan Khachatryan. However, according to the words of the latter most part of the MPs refuse to sign the document bringing up different reasons. Secretary of the Prosperous Armenia faction Aram Safaryan yesterday told us that they hadn’t made such a decision. Thus none of the MPs of their faction signed the document. To the question whether they will discuss this issue within the faction he responded, “We’ll wait and see. We haven’t discussed it yet. Once we discuss we will let you know of our decision.” Many of the RPA members in general avoided to speak about this by saying that this is a political issue and that they cannot by their own initiative sign the document. Unlike the other republicans Armen Ashotyan refused to sign the document because of his own decision. “I personally didn’t endorse the initiative of the Heritage taking into account the fact that the accusations, which were brought up by the prosecutor against our colleagues, is part of the famous criminal case. I think the best venue of accepting or rejecting the accusations is the court hall. That’s why I didn’t sign for the extraordinary session.” He also added, “If this initiative was brought up several months ago it would be a better time framing.” No one from the ARF faction joined the initiative either. However, none of the MPs of the former political detainee party agreed to simplify why they didn’t join the initiative. The Legal State as usual does what the other members of the coalition do. It means they are not going to sign either. Judging from this fact perhaps there is no need to hope that the initiative of the Heritage will have any result.