The 'Armenia' Faction Proposes Creating a New Investigative Committee

The National Assembly's 'Armenia' faction has put forward a legislative initiative. The faction proposes the establishment of a separate state body endowed with sufficient powers in accordance with the Constitution, which would involve broad public and balanced participation, to examine the circumstances surrounding the military operations unleashed by the Republic of Azerbaijan on September 27, 2020.

According to the justification, there is currently no separate body in the Republic of Armenia's existing legislation that deals with these issues. Although the Constitution and the ‘Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly’ constitutional law provide for the possibility of creating an investigative committee in a parliamentary governance system, the existing model of the committee and the established political correlation evidently do not suffice for an investigation requiring such scale, depth, content, professional approach, and political neutrality.

It is proposed that, in accordance with Article 122 of the Constitution, 8 of the 9 members of the Commission elected by the National Assembly be nominated evenly by the governing and opposition factions, each through the proposal of 4 candidates, and one candidate by the Human Rights Defender. Moreover, the following conditions are suggested for the candidates proposed by the factions: at least one candidate for the Commission member is nominated by 1) the factions of the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh proposed to the governing and opposition factions of the National Assembly, 2) based on consultations with those parties (party alliances) that received at least 1 percent of total valid votes in the last national elections in the Republic of Armenia, 3) based on consultations with relevant non-governmental organizations in the Republic of Armenia whose statutory objectives include issues of state defense, security, as well as support for individuals affected by military operations, and that have been carrying out such activities in the last five years.