Armen Harutyunian: Society cannot be composed of persons
having only rights and those having only obligations
26-02-2010 23:00:00 | Armenia | Human Rights
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. "It does not matter if
the gas tariff rise calculations are correct or not. The
important thing is that the ordinary citizen is defenseless, the
principle of social justice has been violated and the social
burden is becoming unbearable for him," RA Ombudsman Armen
Harutyunian said at the February 25 press conference.
In his words, eventualy the matter concerns the problem of
monopolies: there are no market relations, but there are
unnatural monopolies which conflict with the Constitution and,
in fact, they are destroying small and medium entrepreneurship.
The ombudsman underlined that he began receiving numerous
complaints from medium entrepreneurs who say that big business
has created such conditions that it is impossible to work.
"People are not given the opportunity to carry out normal
entrepreneurial activity so that they could earn money and in
that case the social burden would not be so heavy," A.
Harutyunian said. He called on the government to develop a
social package for vulnerable sections of the population - in
case of a rise in the gas price.
As regards the amendment, which was made in 2009 to the RA
Law on Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues and under
which a citizen shall be informed that his (her) organs can be
used without his (her) permission so the citizen must state in
written form beforehand that he (she) forbids his (her) organs
from being used, A. Harutyunian called it not only an
anticonstitutional, but also a ridiculous law.
"The Constitution is increasingly losing touch with our
reality," A. Harutyunian noted, adding: "If things continue in
the same way, in 15-20 years we can speak about the reservation
of Armenia rather than the Republic of Armenia, and about the
internal rules of the reservation of Armenia rather than about
the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia". He said that the
state bodies should think of measures to stop all this because
"society cannot be composed of persons having only rights and
those having only obligations".