Mr. Bruce Adamson, the Head
of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children (Strasbourg), sent an
open letter to the President of the National Assembly of Armenia Mr. Ararat Mirzoyan, noting that he is
particularly concerned by the Armenian Government’s recent proposal for
amending Article 8 (5) of the Constitutional Law on the Human Rights Defender.
The provision envisages that the amount of allocation for funding from the
state budget to the Human Rights Defender and the Staff thereto cannot be less
than the amount provided the year before.
Mr. Bruce Adamson drew attention
to the fact that the lifting of the guarantee against a regressive provision of
funds to the Armenian Human Rights Defender risks compromising the extensive
work carried out by the institution in all of its competence areas and
especially in the child rights field (monitoring of the implementation of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child (the CRC), consideration of child rights
related complaints, conducting regular unrestricted visits to child care centers,
issuing specific public reports, addressing recommendations to relevant
authorities on child rights issues, organising training courses on children’s
rights, and participating in relevant activities of international organisations).
Given that the Defender is
the monitoring body for the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights
of the Child in Armenia, the Head of the Network expressed his particular
concern about the foreseeable impact of a potential reduction of the financial
and operational capacity of the institution on the child rights promotion and
protection aspect of the work of the Human Rights Defender’s Office as the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child implementation monitoring body in
Armenia.
There is a serious risk that
a reduction or some degree of unpredictability in the financial capacity of the
Human Rights Defender may render the institution ineffective or limit the
Defender from reaching its full potential.
In addition, in case of proposed
changes, the Defender’s institution may be deprived of his full membership
status in those international organisations, as provided for by the ENOC Statutes.
Given the Paris Principles,
the standards of the UN and the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children
and Armenia’s international obligations, the letter called to review the
amendment of Article 8 (5) of the Constitutional Law on the Human Rights
Defender of Armenia.
Note: The objective of the ENOC’s
activities is to ensure and promote the protection of the rights of the child
under the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Human Rights Defender of
Armenia has been an Associate Member of the Network since 2009, and became a
full member in 2018, which provides an opportunity to participate in the organisation’s
governance and the activities of its governing bodies.
We present below the English
version of the letter and its Armenian translation that was prepared
by the Office of the Human Rights Defender.
P.S. While addressing the
open letter to the President of the National Assembly of the Republic of
Armenia, the Head of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children
(Strasbourg) was informed that the Government had withdrawn the draft abolishing
the guarantees of financial independence of the Defender's Office the letter however was written for preventive purposes.
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