Responding to the www.hra.am question if the monthly allowance of 9100 drams to the families that lost their sons in the army may be raised by the Governemnt decision, Hrair Karapetyan who is the Chairman of the RA National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence, National Security and Internal Affairs, first asked for what allowance these 9100 drams were and then said that it would be raised because it is too low.  

Karapetyan said about that on January 4 at the press conference at Novosti press center where he also spoke about a number of problems that, in particular, concern medical assistance to parents of servicemen.

"For example, today we discussed a draft that is in the agenda for the last two years. It concerns treatment of relatives of servicemen. You know that by the law this treatment must be free but the state order is given to military hospitals only and people are obliged to wait there for 2-3 months, sometimes even longer. We suggest that these orders should be given also to other medical institutions. The person who needs urgent surgery should not wait for 2-3 months; or the person can get the sum as compensation," Karapetyan said to www.hra.am.

He is convinced that this year the RA Government cannot refuse their proposal using economic crisis as an excuse.

Touching upon the issue of killings or accidents with fatal outcome due to absence or inaction of inner discipline rules in Armenian army, Karapetyan said that they are planning to reform the Military Forces general disciplinary, inner disciplinary as well as garrison and guard service codes of rules.

"For example, if the serviceman protests against some unfair action of his commander, he has to protest not to the same commander but, according to the code of rules, a superior officer should consider the commander's issue because if the commander gets the protest the result is clear, the soldier will get an additional punishment," Karapetyan says. 

One of the reporters asked what would happen if the superior officer of the same garrison tries to cover up the protest. Karapetyan answered that everything would be under the controlof the service security council for inner rules that would involve also local NGOs dealing with human right protection as well as employees of the human rights institution. 

Karapetyan also suggests establishing an institute of military ombudsman in Armenia.

"There is even an article restricting orders of commanders, what orders they cannot give. There is no such law now: commanders do whatever they want, and unconscientious people exceed their commissions and cause revolt among soldiers and you all know what else.  Any order insulting the dignity of soldier will be excluded," Karapetyan said.      

Karine Ionesyan

Source: www.hra.am