For the purpose of increasing the powers of the opposition the amendments of the NA bylaw were delayed. During yesterday’s press conference the vice-speaker of the NA Hrayr Karapetyan said so.
“It is very sad that we decided to do so only after the March 1 events and the PACE resolution requirements. We should have done it on time,” he said. “ARF Dashnaktsutyun party faction suggested extending the authorities of the parliamentary opposition far before the present amendments, however, no one listened to us then,” Karapetyan said. He called the present amendments to the Parliament Regulations, being discussed in NA, late and connected them with PACE April Resolution on Armenia. He added that three permanent commissions will be created in the Parliament, one of which will be headed by the opposition representative, as the governing forces offer. “There is one oppositional party in our Parliament which, unfortunately, consists of seven people. I am yet unaware of their final answer, some people say that they refuse of what they are offered,” the MP said. “We were the authorities’ integral part since 1998, however, we were not a majority, and many proposals we made were not accepted. We have repeatedly raised this issue, and now we are going to come up with new proposals for extension of the opposition’s authorities”, the vice speaker said. He also said that all the political forces in the country should understand that they may always turn out to be in a role of the opposition, so, legislative strengthening of authorities of the opposition will make the political field more civilized and the election campaign less rigorous and personified. “It is not a tragedy that a political force becomes an opposition. When I was in the opposition, I felt freer. There are advantages in it, as you may say what you want,” Karapetyan said. Reminder: According to the adopted amendments of the NA on June 11 the opposition is allowed to ask questions to the RA government members via certain privileges. Besides that at the hour of announcements the NA opposition may make speech after the speech of each governmental MP. Prior to this amendment the opposition MP would have the chance to do so if they were queued to make speeches after the governmental MPs. According to the changes to the law the opposition was given comparably more “powers” to have chairmen and deputy chairmen of commissions. However, this provision will be applied in the next convocation of the parliament. It means that the only opposition faction Heritage will not have the privilege to use this amendment. Karapetyan found our remark quite normal, which related to the assumption that the NA majority moved this amendment to the next convocation because they think they may be opposition at that time. By the request of the journalist Karapetyan also spoke about the fact that the Mayoralty of Yerevan refused the opposition to hold a rally in the Liberty Square on June 20. Let us remember that the refusal was substantiated by the Mayoralty with the occasion on “Little Yerevan Resident” event scheduled for that day. “I don’t know what event is planned. We must check that. Maybe it is a more important event than the rally. Besides that I don’t think that in Yerevan only that venue must be used for rallies,” said Karapetyan. “ARF Dashnaktsutyun party will do its best for no political prisoners to be in Armenia,” the vice speaker of RA Parliament said. “We experienced it several years ago and in much more cruel way,” he said. He recalled that it is scheduled to create a temporary commission in the Parliament on investigation of March 1 events. Karapetyan expressed confidence that the Commission will do its best for no arrested person to be condemned for political reasons. As Karapetyan said, “those guilty of crimes and, first of all, of the death of peoples, should be made accountable.” He also said that one of the questions to be answered by the Temporary Commission is determination of the degree of adequacy of the Police actions on March 1. He also emphasized that if a relevant law is passed concerning the Commission’s activity, it may also summon the former top officials responsible for the decisions taken on March 1, including ex-President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and ex-Head of RA Police Hayk Harutyunyan. To our question whether the temporary commission can ask questions to former president Kocharyan besides the former chief of police Hayk Harutyunyan and president’s chief of security service Grisha Sarkisyan (this was discussed at the NA) Karapetyan avoided giving a direct answer, “I don’t know what the commission will decide and we will speak about this once this regulation is adopted. OK?” What is the opinion of the vice chairman of the Parliament about extraordinary elections? “If some political force thinks that it is not relevantly represented in the parliament it doesn’t mean that extraordinary elections must be conducted in a year after that. There will always be cases when certain parties and candidates will be dissatisfied with the reality. They should wait till the next elections and not claim for extraordinary elections,” he thinks.