PACE TO HEAR REPORT ON ARMENIA IN LATE JANUARY

PanARMENIAN.Net - January 27 the report on monitoring in Armenia will be presented for discussion by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Vice-Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, head of the Armenian delegation to PACE Tigran Torosian told journalists. In his words, a recent sitting of the PACE monitoring commission considered the preliminary version of the report and a number of proposals of the Armenian party were included in it. At the suggestion of the Armenian parliamentarians the term of holding the referendum on constitutional reform was extended till July 2005. It should be noted that earlier the PACE insisted on holding the referendum in 2004. Besides, the report item on the Nagorno Karabakh issue, which was titled "The Armenian-Azeri relations" was renamed into "The issue of Nagorno Karabakh." In the Vice-Speaker's words, to discover and punish those guilty in gerrymander at the past presidential and parliamentary election in Armenia the PACE has set the term till the end of 2004. Thereupon T. Torosian emphasized that all those guilty should be punished, irrespective of the offices they hold. At that the document notes that within the latest six months a notable progress in meeting commitments to the Council of Europe is registered in Armenia. In T. Torosian's words, among those unmet are the holding of a referendum on constitutional reform, as well as a reform of the Electoral Code and the judicial-legal system.