Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

A.D. Sakharov Armenian Human Rights Centre

Annual Report

June 1, 2010-May 31, 2011

Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

Yerevan 2011

Introduction

The following report summerizes the results of the activities implemented by the A. D. Sakharov Armenian Human Rights Centre (hereinafter referred to as Sakharov Centre) in the framework of the “Raising activity of population and local civil society structures through accelerating democratization of social processes in the region and enlargement of human rights activity” project (period from June 1, 2010 to May 31, 2011, grant # 16634).

The donor organization is the Open Society Foundations-Armenia.

Project Goal

То raise activity of population and local civil society structures in the sphere of protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

1. Ways to reach the purpose:

• Formation and strengthening of coalitions of local civil society structures on regional level for lobbying public interests.
• Enlarging the activity of rendering free legal aid and juridical services for socially vulnerable people on regional level.
• Activation of local civil society structures for the public discussions on the RA legislative acts.
• Activation of local civil society structures for the supervision of activity of the local self-government bodies and social-educational structures.
• Capacity building of human resources and organizational technologies of local civil society structures.
• Raising awareness of the population on different aspects of the RA legislation.

1. Project Geography

1. Summerized indicators of the activities implemented by the Sakharov Centre in the framework of the project

1.442 seminar-trainings, lectures, trainings and thematic discussions have been organized with the participation of 1925 inhabitants from 30 rural communities and small towns.

2. 306 activities have been carried out for the consolidation of local civil society structures.

2.1. For public rights protection 35 social discussions on environmental, social and legal procedure issues have been carried out.

3. 143 NGOs and other structures have been constantly involved in the joint activity:

• Shirak region-126 organizations,
• Gegharqunik region-19 organizations,
• Syunik region-7 organizations.

4.222 leaflets and other printed materials have been disseminated (10500 editions in total) for the population of towns and rural communities of Shirak, Gegharqunik and Syunik regions, which elucidate separate aspects of the National Code and International Rights.

4.1. 16 methodolgical manuals on social monitoring, preparation of volunteer corps and elucidative activity have been prepared and published.

5..58 inhabitants from rural communities and small towns have been regularly involved in the volunteer activities:

• Shirak region – 34 inhabitants
• Gegharqunik region- 8 inhabitants
• Syunik region – 16 inhabitants

67 students from higher schools and institutes have passed their practice in the structural subdivisions of the Sakharov Centre.

6. 79 collective legal consultancies have been organized for the population of rural communities and towns of Shirak, Gegharqunik and Syunik regions.

7. 5289 representatives of vulnerable layers of the society have been provided with free individual legal consultancy.

7.1. 78 representatives of vulnerable layers of the society have been provided with free juridical consultancy

8. 340 letters have been addressed to the state and local self-government bodies for the protection of citizens’ rights and society interests in extrajudicial order.

9. Suggestions and complements on 11 laws on different aspects of the RA National Code and the drafts have been submitted to the National Assembly and to the liable state bodies with the purpose of agreeing them for with the RA Constitution and international norms ratified by the RA National Assembly (the list is attached-Appendix 1).

10. More than 54 speeches and publications in mass media have been realized.

11. 3 social monitorings have been implemented in:

• Shirak region – monitoring of the activities of special educational and social institutions in Gyumri,
• Gegharqunik region – monitoring of publicity and transparency of the legal acts adopted by 5 local self-government bodies,

Syunik region – monitoring of the teaching-educational conditions in the comprehensive schools of 7 rural communities (the reports are attached).

12. In the framework of this project 4 local NGOs and 1 school have implemented 3 small sub-grant projects due to the methodical management and financial support of the regional branches of the Sakharov Centre.

13. On the basis of the regional branches of the Sakharov Centre 3 resource centres in Gyumri, Gavar and Goris have functioned, which have provided free counselling, technical and technological services for 187 local organizations and 1873 physical persons.

13.1. The juridical service have provided various civil society structures in Yerevan and regions with free juridical consultancies.

1. Evaluation of the results

The implementaion of the above mentioned activities of the project allowed to reach the following results:

1. Mobilization of the resources and capacities of local civil society structures through involving them in the decision making processes on local government level.

In Gyumri, Gavar and Goris councils from local NGOs have been formed for the protection of public rights, which realize monitoring of the activity of governmental bodies in social and environmental spheres.

The representatives of local civil society organizations are involved in commissions and similar groups formed by regional and local social-educational services and other administrative structures.

The fact of increasing the impact of local civil society structures contributed to the formation of operative responding groups adjacent to regional Aarus centres on the issues of violations of the environmental hygienic and sanitary norms.

Regular cooperation between the local civil society organizations and regional mass media increases, which contributes to the public opinion formation on the vital regional and state issues.

The local NGOs more actively participate in the discussions of guidelines and other legislative draft acts both on regional and state level.

Partnership relations between the civil society structures of regions and the capital are getting more consolidated particularly in environmental and human rights spheres.

1. Increasing the level of cooperation and confidence between local self government and civil society structures.

Creation of coalitions from various civil society structures on local level gave opportunity to efficiently implement social monitoring of the activities of regional organizations and institutions.

Modernity and non-preconception of the monitoring results, regular contact between the representatives of the local self government and local civil society structures have formed the preconditions for the joint activity. For example: the Gegharqunik regional administration has offered the corresponding NGOs to undertake the responsibilities of increasing professional level of employees of the local self-government.

In Shirak region the corresponding NGOs actively take part in the organization and implementation of the activities aimed at development of rural communities.

The methodological materials elaborated by corresponding NGOs in Gyumri on managing multi-apartment condominiums are used as guiding manuals.

Heads of rural communities have taken initiatives in formation of community NGOs.

Heads of numerous rural communities involve Goris NGOs in the process of solving problems of community schools and in raising awareness of young people on the environmental issues.

In practice the regional branches of the Sahkharov Centre and other local NGOs serve as counseling centres for the representatives of the local self government bodies.

c. Strengthening the civic activity of the population of small towns and rural communities by involving them in the process of lobbying and protection of their social rights.

Raising population’s civic participation is a complex issue, and its solution in the framework of the project has been carried out in the following directions:

• Implementation of elucidative activity among population, including trainings for young people and pupils of higher school.

• Theoretical and practical preparation of volunteers.

• Speeches on social and public urgent issues on state and regional level via mass media.

• Involvement of more active members of regional society in public discussions on the protection of public rights in different aspects.
• Enlargement of various activity types in the field of protection human fundamental rights and freedoms, including awareness raising on legal issues.

For effective solution of raising civic activity, the Sakharov Centre has involved local NGOs in the above mentioned implementation processes by means of the regional branches.

As a rule the elucidative activity in rural communities (Shirak and Syunik regions) has been implemented with the help of more than 2 NGOs.

The main themes of the seminars and trainings are:

1. “The ways of building civil society”,
2. “Human fundamental rights and freedoms”,
3. “Democratic institues of the civil society”,
4. “The structure of the RA government”,
5. “Rights and responsibilities of the local self-government bodies”,
6. “Some aspects of the RA Civil and Social Legislation”,
7. “Regional environmental issues”, etc.

Preparations of volunteers as a part of educational projects have been carried out. In some cases trainings for young people (Shirak, Gegharqunik and Syunik regions) have been carried out by the volunteers after those preparations.

In Gegharqunik region seminar-presentations of various thematics have been carried out by the trainees.

Inhabitants of rural communities (Syunik and Gegharqunik) actively use the resources of human rights organizations for protection of their rights (receiving family benefit and pension, defining disability, aquiring citizenship, etc).

Examples of typical human rights violations observed in the framework of the project are presented in the section “Examples of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the RA” of the current report.

Population’s civic activity (representatives of regional society, corresponding administrative officers) particularly expresses during the public discussions of legislative initiatives organized by the ministries and departments on society social issues.

The following results of the social discussions can serve as examples:

• Draft law on making changes and amendments to the RA Law “On NGOs” ,
• RA draft law “On temporary disability benefit”,
• Draft law ‘’On making changes and amendments to the RA Electoral Code’’.

The above mentioned does not contain the list of the whole work implemented during the reporting period.

Moreover, the implementation of the project objectives does not guarantee the irreversibility of the democratization process of social life on local level.

Construction of civil society on local level is a long-lasting process of new ideology, culture and ethics, the indicators of which are the creation of social institutional structures with the help of more active members of society and the strengthening the influence of society on the decisions accepted in all levels of government.

At the same time it’s worth mentioning that some structural peculiarities of our reality hinder the process of formation of legal state and civil society in our country. By protecting in practice the rights of the 80% of the citizens applied for assistance to the Sakharov Centre we can state the following:

• Solving individual problems of the citizens via reconstruction of their constitutional rights does not eliminate the initial cause of those problems. Subsequently, violation of the citizens’ rights and freedoms are repeated frequently.
• The absence of discipline in state structures and professional and ethical incompetence of the bureaucratic system lead to the fact that political decisions are not implemented in state’s inner political spheres.
• Total politicization of the government structure in local and regional levels creates “inaccessible zones” for protection of citizens’ constitutional rights. In all levels of state and local government the criteria of choosing professionals are substituted by the principle of political affiliation.
• As a rule state supervisory structures implement their functions formally without analyzing the situation formed on local levels.
• Generally claims of law are not the regulatory tools for establishing relationship between governmental structures and society. The same legislative norms in different governmental structures are interpreted according to their departmental (narrow, bureaucratic) appropriateness (expediency).
• The decisions of the RA government on the development of cooperation between state structures and representatives of the civil society are of declarative nature.

The above mentioned is only a part of the structural peculiarities in our reality, which is represented both by the practical examples provided by the legal services of the Sakharov Centre and the monitoring results implemented by the organization’s regional branches.

1. Examples of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the RA

Preface

In the scope of the report we present several cases of violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms, ratified by the RA Constitution, laws and international agreements, which were authorized by some RA state and local self government bodies and by their officials correspondingly. There are several cases in the presented examples which have been under discussion for several years, but haven’t received final solutions yet.

By analyzing the issues raised by the applicants we can suppose that they are not aware of their elementary rights ; a raised issue has other derivative issues connected with each other. The applicant raises one issue, but in the course of the consultation there raise others, preconditioning the solution of the main one. Consequently, we raise their awareness on their rights and responsibilities via consultations. Very often we help them to get orientated and solve the raised issues without difficulties, but sometimes there are cases that causes anxiety and are of ubiquitous nature requiring state approach and solution. Often we succeed in restoring citizens’ violated rights, but we cannnot eliminate the vicious phenomena present in our republic.

Our research shows that issues concerning the people emigrated from Azerbaijan in 1988-1992 still remain unsolved. Those are: improving their living standards ratified by the RA Constitution, acknowledging the right of gratuitous privatization of allotments with cottages and their state registaration, aquiring citizenship for their children or defing their status, etc.

In the course of our legal consulttions we pay peculiar attention to the issues of allocating apartments to the inhabitants living in emergency, semi-panel, hostel buildings and improving the conditions of already allocated appartments. Though most of the inhabitants living in such buildings have been provided with appartments by the RA budget, the number of family members and existence of persons of opposite sexes older than 9 years have not been taken into account by the liable state bodies (as it’s practically impossible for a large family to live in a one-room apartment). As for me a project, providing apartments and improving their conditions which is implemented by state, can’t be considered an efficient one,for how can one allocate an apartment on one hand and violate the right ratified by Article 34 of the RA Constitution on the other hand. Besides most of the inhabitants still live in 4th category emergency buildings subjected to demolition, there is no distinct timetable for providing them with apartments.

The results of the analysis of the mentioned cases show that main motives of mass violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the RA are :

 inaction of some state and local self government officials, unawareness and insufficient level of professionalism, willfulness in implemnting legal acts ,

 absence of responsibility and supervision, atmosphere of being unpunished,

 uncorrespondence and inagreement of some laws and acts to the norms and principles of the RA and International law,

 adoption of some legal acts not in time, which would contribute to the implementation of the regulations of population’s social, apartment and other issues within limits of time,

 not distinct or diverse perception of norms of legal acts, adopting and putting into practice legal acts which correspond to legal acts having the same legal power, or contradict different norms of the same legal act or do not correspond each other,

 absence of proper supervision towards managerial subjects and/or their patronage, supremacy of interests of the companies and private entrepreneurs who obtain plots paricularly in Yerevan, which is considered more important than the rights and interest of landowners and citizens having property rights.

Example 1

The issue of providing the citizens living in unfinished buildings (the construction has begun during Soviet years and remained unfinished) with apartments hasn’t got its legal solution yet. Those citizens have actually acquired the status of homelessness.

In the result of the analysis it became clear that there is no concept or project elaborated by the RA state government bodies either for alloting apartments to the citizens instead of unfinished apartmnets or compensating financially, and the issue can be considered only in case of adoption of that concept. For submitting the proposal of the concept it is necessary to carry out registration of the mentioned families, analyse the results of the registration thoroughly, find out financial sources for regulation of the issue. The state organs which can propose the concept for approval to the RA Government are :the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Territorial Administration and the Ministry of Urban Development.

In responce to our inquiry the Ministry of Urban Development stated that the project concept is envisaged on the basis of formation of the RA annual budget, and only apartment issues of citizens deprived of their houses because of natural and man-made disasters are solved in the framework of state assistance projects. The issue of alloting apartments to the citizens living in unfinished buildings will be possible to consider later, during the discussion of similar issues (alloting apartments to 1900 people /90 in Yerevan/ living in unfinished buildings) in case funds are alloted by the RA state annual budget.