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Sara Petrosyan

A “Naked Right”

On May 12, 2007, Armenians living abroad were denied participation in elections of national importance for the first time.

Surprised Armenians sent e-mails of complaint to the media inArmeniaon the day of the elections, expressing anger at the attempt to suppress their electoral right. At the same time, they wanted to understand why none of the diplomatic representations of Armenia abroad offered an explanation for their exclusion from this important process. Changes in the Armenian Electoral Code, which came into force in March 2007, effectively deprived Armenian citizens living abroad of their right to vote. This was ensconced in Article 2 of the Electoral Code, which read “Citizens of the Republic of Armenia who hold citizenship of another country at the same time, as well as citizens who are not registered in the Republic of Armenia will not participate in voting during elections.”

These electoral changes were adopted by Parliament very hurriedly, probably based on calculations that after the law on dual citizenship is adopted, the Diaspora could wield great influence on electoral processes in Armenia. Parliamentarians, caught up in the upcoming elections, were unaffected by the words of Minister of Justice Davit Harutyunyan as he presented the government's bill for changes in the law regarding citizenship. He had asked everyone to avoid unnecessary calculations about their personal future, since they were “standing at the point of making a very important and historical decision.”

After changes were made in the constitution, Parliament began to discuss the controversial aspects of the law regarding dual citizenship, one of which is about the electoral rights of dual citizens. Those against the proposed bill insisted that dual citizens should not be given the right to vote, because it could be a tool in the hands of other counties to interfere in Armenia's internal workings. Others stated that dual citizens should be given the right to participate in elections in Armenia. The Minister emphasized that dual citizenship was growing around the world, and that, due to the issue's importance, the Council of Europe had developed the Convention on Dual Citizenship.

After a series of debates, the point of view prevailed that dual citizens should also be given the right to participate in elections, because it was impossible to ignore agreements that existed in many European countries, wherein dual citizens' rights could not be less than those of people living within a given country. Nevertheless, all the articles in the Electoral Code regarding organizing elections abroad were removed and the following was written, “Elections of the Republic of Armenia are held only within the territory of the Republic of Armenia.”

“The definition of universal suffrage includes within itself the definition of the necessary mechanisms for the given electoral rights. If one has a right but cannot implement it, he was said to have a ‘naked right' all the way back in Roman times. For a large number of citizens, this right became a ‘naked right,' as in they were given the electoral right, but on the condition that they came to Armenia to vote. So the right exists, but there are no mechanisms to implement it,” explained Hrayr Tovmasyan, candidate of juridical sciences and a lawyer in the Legislative Strengthening Program.

“I think that the presence of inadequate mechanisms limits the electoral right entrenched in the Constitution as a process, because those who wish to vote

  1. are forced to come to Armenia and vote here, if permanent registration has been done.
  2. are unable to do so if they have not been registered, because the lists of voters are compiled based on registration addresses. So if one does not have an address of registration, he will not be included in the list of eligible voters.”

There are a large number of citizens who are described by the second point, and this group of people cannot participate in the elections at all. “We wanted to solve the problem of the possibility of other countries interfering in Armenian affairs, but as it turns out we have also consequently deprived our own citizens of the right to vote,” noted Tovmasyan.

He noted that, for dual citizens, the laws in the Electoral Code were adopted as a check to those in the law on dual citizenship. Davit Harutyunyan, while discussing the bill, reminded parliamentarians that since 1995 there have been law-abiding citizens who, having moved abroad, respected the legal code and gave up their Armenian citizenship, but there have also been a large group of Armenian citizens who preferred not to give it up, but who also obtained the citizenship of another country. And since that second group will get to keep their Armenian citizenship because the Constitution now protects them from losing it, it turns out that we have placed the law-abiding Armenians in a more difficult position. “Justice demands that those who have obeyed the law should not be in worse condition than the much larger group that has not done so. I am talking about a number comprising probably less than a 100 people. Is it worth losing them because of other circumstances?” the minister asked from the podium in Parliament.

Hrayr Tovmasyan presented the practice implemented abroad wherein other mechanisms allow citizens located abroad to participate in the elections even when no voting posts are opened for them –

  1. Authorizing someone else to vote on their behalf
  2. Voting through the mail, by requesting ballots beforehand, filling them in and then posting them
  3. Voting through e-mail, which has been implemented relatively rarely.

It is only in this case that one can speak about universal suffrage. Nevertheless, Hrayr Tovamsyan claimed that it any case it would have been possible for Armenian citizens living abroad to be involved in the May 12 parliamentary elections, by opening polling places for them in embassies abroad. “The law states that the elections will be organized within the territory of Armenia only, right? And international law states that embassies and consulates are considered the territory of the country which they represent. So Armenian embassies are considered Armenian territory, which would logically mean that they should open polling places there and at least the people working in that building should vote.”

Based on the number of Armenians living abroad who voted in the last case of national importance (25,993 people living abroad voted in the constitutional referendum on November 27, 2005, according to the CEC), it seems illogical for the parliamentarians to be thinking that by depriving dual citizens of the right to vote they are improving national security and ruling out interference from other countries in the internal life of Armenia.

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