After the national elections, several government deputies, Alkhas Ghazaryan, Arusyak Julhakyan, Arusyak Manavazyan and Hasmik Hakobyan, presented a draft to the National Assembly, proposing to ban our compatriots living abroad from participating in the elections, if they did not live in Armenia for at least 183 days in the year preceding the elections.

“In the case of participating in national elections and referendums, the projects propose to emphasize not only the formal, but also the substantive aspect of a person’s connection with the state by virtue of citizenship. Accordingly, in order to participate in elections and referendums, it is proposed to establish a requirement of actually staying in the Republic of Armenia for 183 or more days during the 365 days preceding it, as of the 48th day preceding the day of the vote or referendum, and in the case of special elections of the National Assembly or a new vote, as of the 28th day, respectively, providing for local self-government bodies and local referendums currently system integration with established settings.

As a result of the adoption of the projects, the systemic unity of the realization of democracy will be ensured, guaranteeing the participation in democratic governance of those citizens whose connection with the state has a real nature and content,” it was noted. design.

Alkhas Ghazaryan, one of the authors of the project, in a briefing with journalists yesterday in the parliament said, it is not a good day that such a project was presented.

“The said change is conditioned by the last elections, and it is not a good day that we are going to such a change, because we had no idea that such questions might arise.”

Specialist in international law, former member of the National Assembly Taron Simonyan has not yet familiarized himself with the project, but is generally against being guided by such a principle.

“Even then, I was against all the restrictions related to the right to vote, which are aimed at our citizens. I was also against when they removed the procedure for organizing elections for our citizens abroad, which was 10-15 years ago.

It does not matter how long an RA citizen has lived in Armenia, if he is a citizen of this country, he should have the opportunity to participate in the elections by virtue of his citizenship. Of course, each state decides for itself how to limit the rights of its citizens in a temporal or non-temporal context, but it is against my beliefs from the point of view of jurisprudence that it makes a person a citizen and limits his right to vote.” of 168.am Taron Simonyan said in a conversation with

According to the expert of international law, all this is very similar to the practice of countries where electoral rights have been formally established, but actual people cannot go and participate in the elections, because there are mediated procedures.

“For example, blacks in the United States got the right to vote in the 19th century, but were able to exercise that right only in the 1970s. In other words, there were procedural limitations.

I agree with the opinions shared by many lawyers that a citizen is a citizen and his right should not be limited, if they do not want a person to participate in the electoral process, they can deprive him of his citizenship on the basis of not residing in the country.

We have such a procedure, when for 7 years a citizen does not participate in the life of his country in any way, does not say where he lives, does not establish contact with embassies, the state gets the right to limit him unilaterally,” emphasized our interlocutor.

As for the international practice, Taron Simonyan said that he has not studied it in detail, but he can clearly say that different practices are applied in different countries regarding participation in the electoral process.

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