Opposition MP: bill on cutting funding for human rights defender's office may be linked with its head
YEREVAN, March 15. /ARKA/. An Armenian government bill that calls for cutting the funding of the human rights defender's office may be linked with the personality of the human rights defender and has little chance of going through the parliament, the leader of the opposition Bright Armenia opposition faction Edmon Marukyan said today.
The government bill, which would also entail a cut in staff, if approved by the lawmakers, would no longer obligate the government to maintain the current funding levels of the human rights defender’s office on a yearly basis. Under the current law, state funding for the office cannot be less than the allocation envisaged for the previous year.
"The problem is institutional and can also be related to the personality of the human rights defender, since this institution is greatly based on the authority of its leader. And the authority of the personality leads to an increase in the authority of the institution. Therefore, an encroachment on the institution of the human rights defender is worthy of strict condemnation," Marukyan said in a conversation with reporters.
Marukyan believes that this bill will not be approved by the parliament. According to him, international colleagues also condemn such an approach to the institution of the human rights defender.
“I think the authorities didn’t know what they were doing, what they were touching and would quickly remove their hands from this institution,” he said.
Marukyan did not rule out that deputies of the ruling My Step faction may also vote against the bill.
Arman Tatoyan called this decision of the government discriminatory at a press conference on March 13. He announced his intention to apply to the Constitutional Court if this draft is adopted.
The 2021 budget of the human rights defender's office is 532.5 million drams, an increase of 2.3 million drams from 2020.
According to Tatoyan, the government should take into account that the work of the office has increased substantially since the end of the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh. -0-
