Meeting at the NA Standing Committee on protection of human rights and public affairs

On February 13 the Chair of the Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs of the RA National Assembly Elinar Vardanyan met with the expert of the European Union Lori Mann to discuss the draft law “On Discrimination.”, which is still at the phase of elaboration.

Cooperating with the EU experts and representatives of the NGOs the RA Human Rights Defender has initiated a draft law aimed at the protection of human rights, which enjoyed discriminative attitude and defining fighting mechanisms against discrimination. Mrs Mann presented the EU countries’ and international experience in this field, underlining that having a separate law on discrimination was the best version.

Defending the idea of such an initiative and the principles of fighting against discrimination, the Chair of the Standing Committee deemed some mechanisms imposed in the preliminary version of the draft law incomplete. In particular, he proposed the authors to comply the Human Rights Defender’s authorities reserved by this draft law with the obligations prescribed by the Constitution.

The EU expert expressed willingness to review the raised issues and underscored that this endows the Human Rights Defender with a new mandate, hence it will cause some amendments in the relevant law. Lori Mann noted that in the person of the Human Rights Defender’s Office and the NA Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs, she sees the best partners and supporters. As for the adoption of the law “On Discrimination,” to her characterization, it will lead Armenia one step forward in the sphere of protection of human rights.

Elinar Vardanyan noted that the Committee led by her, as a structure concerned about the protection of human rights, is open to all and is ready to cooperate.

The interlocutors reached an agreement on improving the draft law as a result of discussions and joint efforts.