Armenia: Law on Preserving Order Criticized for Creating Potential Political Imbalance

A recently adopted law that opens the way for the army’s potential intervention in public political disputes is fostering worries about the fairness of upcoming parliamentary elections in May.

The bill, passed by parliament on March 21, would allow President Serzh Sargsyan, a former defence minister, to call in the army under a state of emergency to fulfil certain law-enforcement functions, provided the police and “state-authorized national security forces” were deemed incapable of doing so. Among those functions would be: protecting the government and “special guarded facilities;” securing transportation routes; preventing “emergency situations;” and quelling the “activities of illegal armed groups.” In addition, the law specifies that the army’s “functions” in such situations would be governed by “regulations for [Ministry of Internal Affairs] troops.”

Given that memories are still fresh of the deadly clashes that followed Armenia’s controversial presidential election in 2008, government critics fear the law creates an uneven political playing field during the present electoral season. The parliamentary vote is scheduled for May 6.

The international community harshly criticized the excessive use of police troops and armed forces during the 2008 crackdown. International rights groups have not yet commented on the 2012 state-of-emergency law.

Arthur Sakunts, a leading human rights activist in Armenia, argues that the law’s danger lies in its “vague” wording, which gives “authorities a certain flexibility.” As the post-election clashes in 2008 demonstrated, the government and opposition are unlikely to agree on what constitutes a threat to public order, and what defines an “armed” individual.

“The concerns voiced are really to the point,” said Sakunts, head of the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly’s office in the northern town of Vanadzor. “The law does have many gaps which are worth being criticized.”

Gagik Jhangirian, a former military prosecutor under former President Robert Kocharian, contends that the bill violates Article 55 of the Constitution, which states that the armed forces may only be used to repel “an armed attack on the republic, an imminent danger thereof, or declaration of war,” or when martial law is declared, or troops are mobilized.

In passing the law, the government is sending “sort of a message addressed to the people,” said Jhangirian, a member of the opposition Armenian National Congress, the coalition that bore the brunt of the arrests that followed the 2008 bloodshed. “They want to say, ‘See, we have a law already, so you should behave yourselves.’”

Under the constitution, the president can declare a state of emergency after consulting with just the prime minister and parliamentary speaker. Currently, both the prime minister and parliament speaker are members of the Republican Party of Armenia, which is headed by President Sargsyan. Some leading politicians contend that checks on presidential authority need to be strengthened.

“The law gives the authority to decide whether or not there is a threat to the constitutional order to a single person and his immediate supporters,” noted Vahan Hovhannisian, head of the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun’s parliamentary faction. A special task force, Hovhannisian asserted, would be better suited to decide on whether or not a state of emergency should be declared. “Our army, which is under the authority of the Defense Ministry, must not be involved in politics,” he stated in parliament.

Defense Ministry officials did not respond to questions from EurasiaNet.org about the law in time for publication.

Government representatives dismiss contentions that the governing Republican Party of Armenia harbored a hidden agenda when it pushed the state-of-emergency law though the legislature. Responding to opposition concerns expressed during a February 29 parliamentary floor debate, Justice Minister Hrayr Tovmasian gave “my name as a pledge” and stressed “that the government is not thinking up any plots with regard to this law.”

In an apparent bid to underline that message, the chief of Armenia’s police, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Gasparian, on March 23 “reminded” police that law-enforcement officers “serve all the people.” At the same time, Gasparian said that security agencies should act “as a cold shower for all those seeking adventures,” news outlets reported.