News
Speech of RA Ombudsman Armen Harutyunyan on 23.10.2009 Press- Conference
10/23/09
1. Labor abuse
Nowadays it is widespread to talk about patriotism and statehood, and present ideas about means and ways of state development. I am confident that the main criteria that is capable of assessing the real attitude towards state and statehood is the attitude towards a human being. Many times we raised the problem of civil, political rights and freedoms; today let's turn to social-economic rights.
Today from the standpoint of labor rights the Republic of Armenia faces the labor abuse principle. Employers that consider a citizen as a mean of gaining super-profits by various ways of violation of the employers’ rights, bears the same attitude towards the State. To substantiate the abovementioned I will describe a precise example from a certain sphere.
In order to receive information about possible violations of the rights of drivers involved in general public transport, we applied the State Labor Agency. According to the preliminary data (taking into account that only 5, not even the largest ones among 70 organizations were examined) the following was revealed.
1. Drivers have been forced to work overtime: work starts at 06.30am and ends at 23.30. It means that people work for 18 hours without any overtime payment.
2. Drivers work without payment. Overall an amount equal to 144 million AMD has not been paid, which includes payment for overtime work, social transfers, as well as income tax collected for the state budget.
3. There was no medical supervision.
4. In one of the organizations only 4 drivers from 24 had corresponding documents.
5. One of the organizations has been working for about a year without a corresponding license.
As a result not only the labor rights of the drivers are violated but also the safety of the passengers is endangered. Article 3 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia stipulates that the human being, his or her dignity and the fundamental human rights and freedoms are an ultimate value; however in reality mass violations of the Article 3 take place.
I hope that the State Labor Agency would make examinations in larger structures of the given sphere irrespective of the owners of those organizations or persons behind them.
2. Monopolies
We have already mentioned many times that monopolistic economy continues to lead Armenia to a deadlock. I agree that the reasons for that are not only subjective, but also objective. However, the problem is predominantly conditioned by subjective factor. The only potential for a small, resource less Armenia is to create corresponding environment for free realization of creative potential of the human being. However, at present antimonopoly institutions are more artificial than effective. Therefore consumer rights protection is not guaranteed at all. It is necessary to implement institutional reforms to make sure that the reformed system contributes to the development of a dignified, free, self-sufficient individual; otherwise we will not be able to meet a single challenge that we face today.
Monopoly and labor abuse should be eradicated for the sake of our future. Articles 3 and 31.1 of the RA Constitution should turn from artificial to actual ones.
3. Environmental protection
RA Human Rights Defender's staff implemented a number of visits and researches in different parts of the country (Dsegh forest, Jrvej Woodland Park, Yerevan communities). These visits showed that from the standpoint of human rights Armenia faces serious problems with environmental protection. The main problems in the given sphere relates to mass deforestation, inappropriate usage of forests and national parks, existence of construction pollution and, probably most important, insufficient control over companies working in mineral resource industry.
Recent emergency call, next in turn, from non-governmental ecological organizations about appalling ecological state in Kapan is particularly alarming. According to environmentalists, soil, water and food contain poisonous heavy metals. They have even found several elements, concentration of which 100 times overwhelming usual norm. These poisonous elements do not decompose; quite the contrary, they concentrate in water, soil and, most importantly, in human organism, affecting the most important systems of a human being: immune system and gene pool.
According to the NGO’s the local residents do not get any reimbursement, though the polluted garner of the above-mentioned organization is open and there are houses next to it, and the beast died from the air poisoning and children’s skin was abraded. The organization continues to pollute Kapan’s territories with hundred thousands cubic meters of empty rocks and wastes. These problems are the evidences that Article 33.2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, according to which “Everyone shall have the right to live in an environment favorable to his/her health and well-being and shall be obliged to protect and improve it in person or jointly with others”, is not respected in its essence.
The ecologists also point out that they were not given distinct information on the results of inspections of “Deno Gold Mining” organization operating in Kapan conducted in 2007-2008 by the Ministry of Nature Protection and Nature protection territorial inspectorate of Syuniq. We consider it important to emphasize that according to the second part of Article 33.2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia “The public officials shall be held responsible for hiding information on environmental issues and denying access to it”.
