RA Minister of Justice Hrair Tovmasyan today received PACE Monitoring Committee Co-Rapporteurs on Armenia, Lord John Prescott and Axel Fisher.
In the beginning of the meeting, Prescott mentioned that this is his 6th visit to Armenia after the events of March 1 and though there have been positive changes, there are still issues that need to be solved.
"Our objective is to find out to what extent Armenia has fulfilled its obligations and the issues and report them to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe," said Lord John Prescott.
The Co-Rapporteurs will focus on the reforms in the Electoral Code, the amendments in the law "On Holding Meetings, Rallies, Marches and Demonstrations", the reforms in the spheres of justice and the police and the issues related to people deprived of liberty in wake of the events of March 2008.
Mr. Prescott viewed the release of some prisoners through amnesty as positive, but said there are still people deprived of liberty and that a failed independent investigation into the events of March 1 is a failure.
RA Minister of Justice Hrair Tovmasyan presented the activities implemented in this period and noted that speaking about post-election events three years after the events of March 1 don't give the authorities the opportunity to implement reforms.
Nevertheless, there is still over half a year before the next elections and that is a favorable period for implementing reforms.
The RA Minister of Justice presented the amendments developed in the laws "On Freedom of Election" and "On Freedom of Rallies", which will be discussed during the upcoming four-day sessions of the National Assembly.
"We are well aware of the issues and are not trying to conceal them, but we don't want to give short-term solutions to the issues," said Minister Tovmasyan and expressed confidence that a great outcome is expected from the changes.
