1 / 3

On December 9-10, the Meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is held in the RA National Assembly.

During the briefing with the media representatives, the Chair of the RA NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs, the Member of the abovementioned Committee Vladimir Vardanyan spoke about holding the Committee Meeting in our country and the agenda.

During the year, the relevant PACE Committees organize the Meeting of the Committee in the venues usually used for holding the Meetings of the Committees, particularly in Paris and in Strasbourg. They have one opportunity to organize it in a non-used venue, and this year the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia hosted its colleagues.

December 9 is the day of adopting the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and December 10 - Human Rights Day, and in these days organizing such an event in Yerevan, according to Vladimir Vardanyan, is also conditioned by the abovementioned circumstances.

In response to the issue related to prisoners of war being held in Azerbaijan, the Armenian delegate clarified the agenda of the discussions in PACE and the fact that the meetings of PACE Committees, unlike the Plenary Sessions, are held more behind the doors. “We cannot form an agenda, because in most cases its formation is due to preparing reports, which are debated in the Committees and should be adopted in the plenary sessions.” He added that the Armenian delegation always speaks up issues connected with prisoners of war being held in Azerbaijan: They are also raised in a number of reports adopted by PACE. According to Vladimir Vardanyan, during the debates reference was made to that issue.

“In the issue related to prisoners of war PACE, seems to be, has done its best, as the resolutions that have been adopted in PACE, distinctly touched upon the problem of prisoners of war and the immediate repatriation of prisoners of war. It means, to require from PACE to do something, we cannot, as, in essence, all agenda items related to prisoners of war have been raised and have received its appropriate solutions in the resolutions,” the representative of the Armenian delegation to PACE noted and reminded that the powers of the Azerbaijani delegation have not been approved in PACE, and the latter does not participate in the meetings of the Assembly.

Vladimir Vardanyan noted that today one of the issues discussed in the Committee was the legal and humanitarian consequences related to what happened as a result of the military operation of Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh. “But demanding from PACE things that are outside its mandate or that cannot be implemented, in our opinion, will again be ineffective,” he said.

Within the framework of the Meeting of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, the exhibition of the children’s paintings titled ‘I Paint My Rights’ dedicated to the 75^th anniversary of the Council of Europe also opened in the National Assembly. The participants of the Meeting got familiarized with the works of the students from more than three dozen Fine Arts schools of Yerevan and all marzes of Armenia.