Armenian authorities' failure to seek Venice Commission's advice 'not the best practice' – opinions
Hripsime Hovhannisyan
Each country has its right to choose where to refer to the Venice Commission, however as practice shows rejection of cooperation is not the best decision, says Dr Hanna Shelest, a member of the Kiev-based analytical center Ukrainian Prism.
In comments to Tert.am, she highlighted particularly three essential factors necessitating the European institution's advice. ″First of all, Council of Europe can insist on the state to search Commission’s recommendations or assessments under the CoE membership obligations. Second, dramatic rejection of cooperation usually brings a negative impact on the state image, so if Armenia is presenting itself as a dramatic state there should not be rejection of such evaluation. And the third is that if the government of Nikol Pashinyan has clear evidences of ‘dubious’ or 'subjective' decisions by Venice Commission they should be clearly articulated and presented so as not to be perceived subjective by yourselves,” she said.
The expert cited the Ukrainian precedent with the Law on Education, which she said demonstrated that the EU, NATO, even the UN institutions ″are usually going in line with the Venice Commission recommendations”
″So these issues can arise regularly for Armenia in their negotiations with other international organizations or EU states, where Yerevan will be in defensive weaker position,″ she noted.
In an interview with the Public Television of Armenia last week Prime Minister Nikol Paashinyan did not rule out the possibility of turning to the Coucncil of Europe partners for advice but said that the Venice Commission ″must first respond to certain questions″ before they move to revising approaches.
According to Emil Avdaliani, a Georgian expert specializing in Soviet space and wider Eurasia, the kind of statement is likely to undermine the EU-Armenia relations.
″Given the nature of relatively limited deep contacts the EU has with Armenia, the decision to hold a referendum without the Venice Commission's opinion would cause criticism among the EU politicians, but it would not fundametally harm the bilateral relations. A comparison with Georgia is helpful here.
"In Tbilisi too, during the latest preparations for constitutional changes, there were many opinions which went against what the Venice Commission suggested. This did not damage Georgia-EU relations. Surely, the context is different with Armenia, but the point is that disagreeing with the Venice Commission could at times ba a part of the process. Most likely, criticizing the Commission would cause some negative statements from the EU towards Yerevan, but there too, it would not harm the existing strategic partnership. All will depend on how far the PM's criticism will go in the future and whether there will be a restraint he essentially wins the referendum. It should be also remembered that the Commission does not represent an official EU body. It just wants to be sure that the change of the judges would not create a similar situation which existed under [former President Serzh] Sargisyan,” he added.
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