YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, NOYAN TAPAN. Article 301 of the RA Criminal Code has been put into circulation in the Venice Commission, the official record of proceedings of the opinion of the latter will be introduced in the sitting of the commission to be held on December 14-15. An inquiry was made by Armen Haroutiunian, the RA Human Rights Defender, for expressing opinion with regard to the article "Public calls directed at changing the RA Constitutional order". As the internet site of the RA Human Rights Defender informs, the Defender was in Strasburg at the invitation of the Directorate General of the the Human Rights of the Council of Europe and Legal Affairs between October 17 and 19, and had a meeting with those, who are responsible for the sphere of Human Rights of the Council of Europe. Phillipe Boillet, the Director of the Directorate General of the the Human Rights of the Council of Europe and Legal Affairs, in particular, expressed his anxiousness with the fact that the responsible people of the Armenian side have not informed about the further destiny of the experimental suggestions concerning the amendments in the RA laws on "Ombudsman", "Alternative Service", and "TV and Radio." The process of the legislative amendments has also been discussed during the meeting with Ambassador Sjogren, the co-Chairman of the so-called AGO Group. The latter distinguished, in particular, the problems connected with the judicial system and the alternative TV, the necessity for improving the legislative mechanisms for the formation of the Council of Public TV Company, as well as for a special retraining of specialists was also mentioned. The following mechanism was offered during the meetings with those responsible for the sphere of the Human Rights of the European Parliament: members of the commission among the candidates presented by the non-governmental organizations and mass media of Armenia ought to be appointed by the RA National Assembly and the RA President. It was stressed that the Public TV is the main factual and legislative alternative TV station in European countries, therefore, measures should be taken for regulating the above-mentioned sphere in Armenia. According to the same source, Thomas Hammerberg, the Council of Europe Commissioner of Human Rights, and the representatives of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman Treatment expressed their anxiousness with the fact that in police headquarters and other imprisonment places the problem concerning torture and inhuman treatment is still on agenda in Armenia, irrespective of the fact that the convention on Torture has been ratified by the country. There are serious ommissions in terms of exercise of laws, about which the increase in the number of the applications addressed to the European Court of Human Rights speaks. According to European responsibles, the recent reforms of the judicial system have not had a necessary influence on the creation of an independent judicial system, and the work conducted in the direction of the retraining of judges and legislative amendments has not had necessary results either.

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