Constitutional reforms should not always be considered in the light of political interests – Gevorg Danielyan

In an interview with Tert.am, Gevorg Danielyan, a member of the Armenian Presidential Commission on Constitutional Amendments, said that the work on the concept is nearing completion.

Mr Danielyan, after discussions by the Venice Commission, the concept of constitutional amendments is to be submitted to the Armenian president. Thereafter, the Venice Commission is to discuss it once more. What are further steps and at what stage are you?

Along with public hearings, discussions have been held not only with the Venice Commission, but also with Armenians and foreign experts. We even requested that Armenia’s president extend the term of public discussions. The work on the concept is now nearing completion given the results of discussions, the final draft will be submitted to the commission’s vote before October 10. If approved, it will be submitted to the Armenian president before October 15.

Vice-President of the Venice Commission Evgeni Tanchev said that the most important thing is that the concept enhances the political minority’s role and prevents loopholes in the law that would be to the detriment of either the political majority or the political minority. In this context he noted that parliamentary government could be indispensible. What’s your opinion?

This assessment was incorporated in the draft concept submitted to their discussion. The expert highlighted the legal and political importance of the provisions.

It should be noted that steps to enhance opposition political forces’ role have become a strict requirement in experienced democracies. Under Armenia’s current Constitution, certain steps were made before constitutional reforms, which can be evidence of the ruling party’s stance of the novelties in question.

Enhancement of opposition political forces’ role will facilitate the formation of a healthy political atmosphere.

How did the political parties treat the proposal for adopting the parliamentary government? Are there any responses?

Our society is familiar with those responses. The political forces are, all in all, not against the parliamentary government model, as they themselves have repeatedly justified its need and raised the question of switching over to it. The approaches differ with regard to the timing. The ARF-D [Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaksutyun] finds that a reasonable round was selected in terms of giving preference to that form of government. As for the other political parties, they call for only addressing it in future, not being principally against the novelty. The question which remains open, is what specifically will make the public demand for constitutional reforms realistic sometime in the future? We are, nonetheless, hopeful that the debates will enter a qualitatively new, more practical and predictable round after the concept is made officially public to enable a more comprehensive and clear representation of the considerations above.

What problems did the meetings in the regions address more?

As we had expected, the questions predominantly addressed the protection of human rights and the ways of improving the local self-government. None of the sides supported the community enlargement idea at the meetings (and I have attended debates in three regions). On the contrary, the participants expressed their joint support to the approaches proposed in the concept. In particular, the clause calling for raising the community organizations role was considered more realistic, as it can give them the power of local self-government bodies. Those organizations can, for instance, merge cost-effective services requiring concrete specializations and relieve communities of extra bureaucratic expenses.

It’s noteworthy that proposals of the kind received approval by representative of opposition political forces and public unions.