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Davit Harutyunyan, the Head of Armenian Delegation to PACE and the Chairman of National Assembly standing committee on State and Legal Affairs, gives exclusive interview to Panorama.am.

- Mr. Harutyunyan, the members of Armenian Delegation to PACE have not made any recommendations of amendments during the discussion of PACE Resolution 1643. Does this mean that the delegation agreed with all the changes?

- Though not all the formulations have been agreed with, we did not consider it expedient to do any.

-In fact, the initiative to make changes in the Criminal Code was the only update in Resolution. Does that new recommendation proceed from the previous recommendations and whether the supposed changes will result in the implementation of any recommendation?

-The recommendation is connected with the Assembly’s previous demands. But, mostly, it is driven by our interests.

-Mr. Harutyunyan, one can get an impression from the co-rapporteurs’ report and PACE discussions that the issue number one is to have solved the problem of the people deprived of their liberty. Does it mean that making amendments in the Articles 225 and 300 of the Criminal Code certain solution will be given to this problem? If yes, how the Assembly imagines the solution of those who are not charged with those two articles, but still they insist on being arrested by political motivations?

-Amendments in Articles 225 and 300 are not directly missioned to solve the problem of those people who are deprived of their liberty. The mission is to make them correspond to some definite legal principles and European standards. I would like to remind Council of Europe Commissioner Thomas Hammerberg’s report, where, inter alia, he mentioned that Articles 225 and 300 of Criminal Code allow for a very broad interpretation by the prosecution. In particular, the formulation of usurping the power “can have a broad interpretation and does not guide how to differentiate legal expression of opinion from violence.” At the same time, it should be noted that in case of the amendments the charge should correspond to the new formulations.

- In order to assess the state of implementations of the resolutions, not only the co-rapporteurs, but also the Commissioner of Human Rights used to visit Armenia. It seems that a hint on Commissioner’s visit has not been dropped. Does this mean that there are no problems with human rights in Armenia, especially regarding “March 1” events or probably it is not needed to re-fix them?

-No, it does not mean so.

-How could You explain the speech of the members of Turkish Delegation in favor of Armenia during the PACE discussion?
-The question is incomplete. The speeches of PACE delegates should not be assessed as speeches of delegates from this or that country. The delegates present not only different countries, but the field of parliamentarian political forces of those countries. Moreover, I am not quite sure what do you mean by saying “in favor of” or “not in favor of”. And the third, if you mean Mrs. Memechan’s speech, then she was presenting the alliance of Liberals and Democrats.

-What do You think, what factors influenced on PACE voting?

-PACE is a political figure. Sometimes they give some negative coloring saying “political”. So, I repeat that PACE is a political figure with a positive coloring. Hence, political factors have influenced on.