PACE closing chapter of March 2008 events?
"The outcome of the latest general amnesty in Armenia, the renewed impetus to investigate the 10 deaths during the March 2008 events, and the resulting start of a constructive dialogue between the opposition and ruling coalition mean that the chapter on the March 2008 events can finally be considered closed", today said the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE).
The draft resolution on the function of democratic institutions in Armenia was adopted today in Paris and will be discussed during the PACE fall sitting.
In the resolution, based on a report by Axel Fischer (Germany, EPP/CD) and John Prescott (United Kingdom, SOC), the committee welcomed the political will demonstrated by "the authorities and indeed all political forces to resolve this issue in line with Council of Europe standards and recommendations".
According to the committee, the 2008 events and their aftermath have set clear priorities for the democratic development of the country: "the conduct of genuinely democratic parliamentary elections; the creation of a robust democratic and pluralist political environment that has the full trust of the Armenian public; the establishment of an open and pluralist media environment; the reform of the police and the reform of the judiciary with a view to guaranteeing its independence both in law and practice".
The adopted text welcomes the "close and constructive co-operation" between the Assembly and the Armenian authorities, which it considers to be "an example" for the development of co-operation in the framework of the Monitoring Procedure of the Assembly.
The text will be debated during the Assembly's next plenary session in Strasbourg (3-7 October 2011)
The report includes a point regarding the broadcasting tender held by the National Commission on Television and Radio in Armenia in December 2010 when "A1+" was deprived of airtime.
"On 16 December 2010, the National Commission for Television and Radio (NCRT) adopted a controversial decision in which it announced that A1+ was not granted a broadcasting license on the grounds that the information sustaining the bid of Meltex LLC, the holding company of A1+, was "not acceptable due to the fact that a significant number of documents verifying availability of necessary financial resources are forged and unfounded. This was denied by the owners of Meltex LCC, while other observers noted that technical errors and omissions in other applications did not prevent them from being awarded a broadcasting license in this tender. While not wishing to comment on the merits of the decision of the NCRT30, we regret that the authorities -in this case the NCRT- rejected the bid from A1+, while being fully aware about its significance, on what would seem to be purely technical/administrative arguments, without allowing Meltex to correct or clarify the background information they had given to support their bid," reads the resolution.
