On July 3 the legislative initiative of deputies from “Heritage” faction Styopa
Safarian and Anahit Bakhshian was submitted to the RA National Assembly. The
initiative is to create an interim parliamentary commission, on the ground of
provisions of RA Constitution and Statutes of the RA National Assembly, to deal
with the fulfillment of requirements of several resolutions of the Parliamentary
Assembly of Council of Europe on Armenia. It concerns the PACE Resolutions 1374(2004),
1609(2008), 1620(2008), 1643(2009), and especially, the last Resolution 1677(2009)
“The Functioning of Democratic Institutions in Armenia” (see YPC Weekly Newsletter,
June 19-25, 2009). The necessity
on holding an open, fair and transparent broadcast licensing competition and
executing the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of June 17, 2008
on the case concerning the denial of a broadcasting license to the “A1+” TV
company is emphasized in the documents. The draft law, particularly, motivates
the creation of a interim parliamentary commission by the fact that the requirements
of the abovementioned Resolutions on the broadcast renewal of “A1+” remain unfulfilled
till this very day, while the others are partially or fully implemented.
According to the proposal of deputies from “Heritage” party, the following
three main tasks are set before the interim commission: the promotion of a legislative
initiative aiming to hold an open, fair and transparent broadcast licensing
competition, on the basis of the report made by an independent CoE spectrum
analyst; the examination and the revision of legislative regulations preventing
the implementation of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights on
the case of “A1+”; the preparation of a conclusion and its presentation to the
RA National Assembly, based on the acquisition and analysis of information on
the circumstances preventing the fulfillment of the PACE Resolutions requirements
on holding a competition and the execution of the European Court judgment.
The draft law also notes that the activities of the interim commission are
supposed to be terminated in the end of October 2009, in order to ensure the
fulfillment of the aforesaid demands of PACE Resolutions before the winter session
of the Parliamentary Assembly of CoE and the forerunning session of Monitoring
Committee on the Honoring of Obligations and Commitments by Member-State of
Council of Europe.
