The amendments
of the provisions of Article 149.1 of the Criminal Code of Armenia in April 28,
2021are very worrying. That Article prescribes responsibility for “Participation
in the pre-election campaigns, or campaigning for the referendum, or compelling
of resignation from participation in pre-election campaigns, or campaigning for
a referendum, or the obstructing in any manner the participation in
pre-election campaigns or campaigning for a referendum”
The
amendments to the article were fixed in the Criminal Code very hastily, the
draft was included in the agenda of the National Assembly session in the first
and second readings and was adopted in one day, on April 28, 2021, without
professional and proper public discussions, had not been published on
"e-draft.am" website, and there were several versions during the
draft stage.
The
justifications are very superficial, contain risks of human rights violations;
the limits of the discretion of law enforcement bodies and courts, the
intention of legislative authority with regard to application of amendments are
not demonstrated. The experience of any country is not mentioned, it is not
shown on what basis of international requirements that these amendments are
made, and the risks from the point of view of human rights are not analyzed.
For
this reason, as the complaints and alarming-calls evidence, it has now received
a problematic and illogical application in practice. After the amendment of
this article of the Criminal Code, no practical criteria or guidelines were
adopted for law enforcement bodies and courts.
The
law enforcement bodies themselves state in the explanations that they clearly
do not have an application experience, nor can they express their position on
it.
As
these amendments to the Criminal Code were to be implemented for a very short
period of time for the snap parliamentary elections, it is related to sensitive
human rights issues which could not be accepted without proper discussion and
with such shortcomings, especially without proper training of law enforcement
bodies and the courts, or at least guidelines for them.
Taking
into consideration the serious procedural shortcomings of the amendment of the
article, as well as its practice, the Human Rights Defender is currently
preparing an application to the Constitutional Court.
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