Before the start of the new convocation of the Parliament, I would like to share two more ideas with the parliamentary opposition. Because the decision to take the NA mandates was also justified by the possibility of using the parliamentary tools, I suggest the opposition to come up with the initiative of creating two investigative commissions.

1. During the last parliamentary elections, the commission investigating the facts of misuse of state funds, use of administrative resources and external interventions.

With this step, the opposition talk of falsifying the elections by the authorities will be institutionally reflected in the political agenda. Using the NA levers, it is possible to reveal new facts and circumstances in this direction. It is also important to shed light on the activities of the new EU mission (just in time for the elections). Let me remind, for example, the scandalous report of EURONEWS in relation to sociological polls.

Of course, additional discussions are needed regarding the functions, mandate, and areas of that commission, but I think that it is definitely worth taking such a step in the new National Assembly.

2. Another justification for creating an investigative commission, another direction can be the issue of political prisoners in Armenia. Given the enormous and unprecedented scale of the problem, a permanent commission on human rights is not sufficient (if it were even to deal with this problem) to fully and comprehensively examine the issue.

Moreover, the creation of such a commission in the National Assembly can be an institutional step for political, public and international reflections of this problem. It is also obvious that this investigative commission can be a nucleus for other public, public, civil initiatives that exist in the field.

In short, I hope that these recommendations can be useful both from the point of view of the parliamentary opposition and from the point of view of capitalizing the opportunities of the National Assembly in the political agenda.

Armen Ashotyan

Vice President of RPA

“Vardashen” Prison

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