The parliament’s standing committee on state and legal issues discussed the government’s bill on “emergency situations”.
The Armenian legislation did not have any laws on emergency situations before that. The issue was regulated by the Constitution, according to which “In case of direct danger threatening the Constitutional order the RA president shall, in consultation with the speaker of the National Assembly and Prime-Minister, announce emergency situation.” The government has developed a bill, which in the framework of the constitution will regulate this issue and establish all conditions concerning state of emergency. However, the bill is being criticized by many political powers as it enables using army forces in case of state emergency. The Constitution establishes that armed forces shall be neutral in connection with political issues. The parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition powers allege that this bill is against the Constitution. By the way, such announcement has been made also by the RPA faction member Rafik Petrosyan as well. However, the bill as adopted by first reading in the parliament on February 9. Due to critics the government called the bill back several days ago, amended and sent it back to the parliament again. Even after the mentioned amendment the bill contains a provision on using armed forces in case of emergency situations. Yesterday during the parliament’s session the bill was subjected to intensive discussion so that the parliament was not able to include it in the next discussion session after active discussions of three hours. They decided to continue the discussions Monday morning, before the plenary session. This time the bill was presented by the justice deputy minister Grigor Muradyan. He also confirmed the fact that “in case of emergency situations army forces could be used in case the police and national security service were not able to cope with the issue.” Is not this provision against the Constitution? “Our Constitution establishes that armed forces can be used for inner security and defense of the country. Security has two components – inner and external. Dangers threatening the Constitutional order cannot be eliminated in other manner than announcing state of emergency; those dangers that are threatening the inner security. Accordingly the Constitution gives a real possibility to announce state of emergency and use the armed forces, but in case of a number of limits and limitations but not full freedom,” said the deputy minister. However, the deputy minister failed to answer questions directly. Following the events of March 1, 2008, and army’s involvement in the clashes there have been many discussions about it being unconstitutional and illegal. Will the government use armed forces if during the upcoming election there are clashes like on March 1? Mr. Muradyan answered this question positively but indirectly, “This law is being adopted for the purpose of preventing things like March 1. If it is impossible to prevent, state of emergency is announced. In such conditions the law enables the involvement of army forces in the clashes but not as fighting power. T is possible only through procedures established for police forces.” With this answer the deputy minister indirectly confirmed the fact that this law is being adopted for securing army’s involvement in any clashes during and following elections, which is against the Constitution. Muradyan also confirmed the fact that the army could be involved in so-called mass disorders. According to him, in such situations the army should not be in the first line of contact with people but will protect strategic objects such as the atomic station, National Assembly, president’s office, etc. If there is any attack on such objects during the mentioned situations, the army may act. Following the clashes on March 1 the opposition discovered and published many facts proving that those disorders were stimulated by a number of people sent by the authorities. Even during court trial many accused people without understanding it accepted the fact that they had been the loyalists of the authorities. In different situations it is not a problem to send such people to stimulate disorders and create an imitation of people attacking such strategic objects and push the army against them. In that situation the army will have the right to interfere with political processes. The deputy minister agreed with the idea that processes could be manipulated to stimulate disorders but did not agree with the possibility that the authorities could do that. The head of the Heritage faction Stepan Safaryan says that involvement of the army in any political processes is unconstitutional and illegal. He also alleges that the parliament’s involvement in the issue of announcing state emergency is disputable. “The parliament is left only for the role of confirming but it should be clear in what situations specifically the parliament should confirm the state of emergency. In fact we have legitimized the situation of March 1 with some disputable formulations,” said the MP.