On January 7 political prisoner MPs Sasun Mikayelyan, Myasnik Malkhasyan and Hakob Hakobyan applied to the speaker of the parliament Hovik Abrahamyan to call an extraordinary session and provide the participation of the prosecutor general and the political prisoner MPs.
About one year ago, on March 4, 2008, Aghvan Hovsepyan applied to the parliament with the information coming to prove that there are suspects that the mentioned MPs and Khachatur Sukiasyan had organized mass disorders for the purpose of power usurpation with extreme methods. Thus, during this one year the criminal investigation group headed by Aghvan Hovsepyan failed to prove the connection of the mentioned MPs with mass disorders. Even more, in order to help the judges come out of this deadlock and fulfill the PACE requirements the authorities amended the 225 and 300 articles of the criminal code. In two months the MPs applied to the parliament to organize an extraordinary session to cancel the decision as of March 4, 2008, to deprive them from MP’s right of personal immunity. On February 2-5 Heritage faction MP Zaruhi Postanjyan initiated a signature collecting to provide the necessary number of signatures for organizing an extraordinary session in participation of the political prisoner MPs and prosecutor general. In order to develop the draft they had to collect 44 signatures, but only 7 people signed that document: the 5 deputies of the Heritage party, Tigran Torosyan and Viktor Dallakyan.
Yesterday we asked the parliamentary factions whether they will not support the mentioned initiative if after the mentioned law amendment the investigation services asked for 10 days for re-stating and changing the order of the criminal accusations and the overall case. Will they ask the prosecutor general to come to the parliament to prove the reasons why they are still keeping the MPs in cells?
“The letter of our colleagues was brought to the parliament in the second half of the day. Of course the issue has to be discussed by the factions too. Specifically our faction has not discussed the issue yet and our MPs have not seen the letter either. We hope to discuss the issue early next week. I know what the MPs think about it, but as I am not a lawyer I don’t want to say anything about it and I think we need a professional advise. I think that the issue has to be discussed with our coalition colleagues as well. However it is clear that if the articles in the criminal code have changed it means that the content of the criminal accusations has to be changed as well,” says Naira Zohrabyan, member of Prosperous Armenia faction.
Artyusha Zohrabyan, member of ARF faction, says that they should wait till April 1 to see what accusations will be brought against the prisoners by the criminal investigation group. He did not know anything about the letter of the MPs. However, due to being the deputy chair of the standing commission on state and legal affairs he knows the law perfectly, thus we wander whether the mentioned changes in the law are not done for certain purposes.
“It is up to the prosecutor’s office to decide what accusations to bring and whether the accusations will be changed. It will be good if we decide the future steps after the prosecutor’s office informs about their decision,” said Mr. Shahbazyan.
The four MPs, who have been deprived of the right for personal immunity, are charged under the articles 225/3 and 300/1, which have been amended as a result of the mentioned changes in the law. The mentioned letter of the MPs writes that as the laws were amended and there is no criminal element in their actions and persecution cannot be undertaken, the decision of the prosecutor general made last year cannot serve a ground for depriving them from the personal immunity right.
We wander what the RPA faction members think about the letter submitted by the MPs. RPA spokesman Edward Sharmazanov says that the mentioned issue is not in the agenda of their party and it should be discussed not in the parliament but within the frames of the law. “There is no such discussion at present, we have not signed, and this issue has not been included in our agenda, and we believe the issue should be discussed within the law,” said Sharmazanov.
The Heritage party has discussed the issue in their faction, even they have met with the speaker to discuss the issue with him as well. The president of the Heritage party board Anahit Bakhshyan says that the head of their faction Armen Martirosyan and she have met with the speaker to discuss the issue. “As I understand he had to do something on Monday. I also understood that there would be no need for an extraordinary session either,” said Mrs. Bakhshyan.
The next session of the parliament is due to on April 6. The court proceedings of the Case of Seven will re-start on April 1. Before the parliamentary session starts people will be informed of the accusation to be brought against the political prisoners. Mrs. Bakhshyan says that if they don’t do anything till April 6, their faction will come up with new initiatives to recover the personal immunity right of the MPs.