On November 13 the RA Ministry on
Labour and Social Affairs organized the public discussion to present the draft
law “On Domestic Violence”. It will be edited after the discussion and
submitted to the Government.

The draft law has been elaborated
back in 2007 by the initiative of the NGO “Women’s Rights Center” based on the
experience of the European countries. In 2009 the draft was presented to the
Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

In June 2011 it was created the Interagency
working group which developed the final version of the draft law. “The document
is very laborious; it could be revised as much as the
work continues. It relates the functions of different agencies: court, Prosecutor’s
Office, Police, community etc. The powers of all these agencies should be
clearly defined and the adjacent laws should be amended to avoid contradictions”,
says the Head of the Interagency working group Lala Ghazaryan.

The Deputy Minister on Labour and
Social Affairs Filaret Berikyan said that the reason for delay of the adoption
of the law was recently ratified Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic
violence.

 “After the
submission of the law to different ministries to obtain the opinions, the
Police, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested to revise
the draft and bring it into compliance with the provisions of the Convention.
Our country seems to get prepared to join the Convention and it would be fair
that we revise the law at this stage. Otherwise we will need to make changes in
the law after the ratification of the Convention”, says the Deputy Minister.  

Adoption of the law “On Domestic violence”
includes amendments in the 5 adjacent laws: Law on
Police, Criminal Code, Criminal Procedure Code, Administrative Procedure Code,
Law on Administrative offences.

The RA legislation
does not define the notion “domestic violence” and there is no official
statistics on how many people are subjected to domestic violence every year  in Armenia. We know about the cases
trough the social surveys and information published by the NGOs.

“If the law were adopted, there would
be statistics as well. We should do our best not only for adoption of the law
but also for its implementation. It will give a possibility for more efficient
protection of the victims of violence. The NGOs should work to increase the
awareness, including trainings for police, prosecutors, judges, lawyers because
we do not have specialized experts in the field”, stresses out Chairwoman of
the “Women’s Resource Center” Larisa Aharonyan.

In recent years the State has adopted
number of strategic documents in the field of gender equality and combat with
the violence against women. In 2010 it was adopted the Gender Policy Concept
Paper, in 2011 the Government approved the National program «Against gender
violence», the Strategic program for 2011-2015 and 2012 Event program which
includes the adoption of the law «On Domestic violence».

The National Assembly has adopted the
draft law on “Ensuring equal rights and possibilities for women and men” at
first reading.

The Head of
the Department of Family, Women and Children issues of the RA Ministry of
Labour and Social Affairs Lala Ghazaryan says that all these documents prepared
a ground for adoption of the law.  

“I think that our Government took
serious steps to regulate the issue of the domestic violence in our country”,
says Lala Ghazaryan and adds that the state policy aimed firstly at the
prevention of the domestic violence.

What the law stipulates?

The law  “On Domestic
Violence” regulates the legal relations concerning the domestic violence,
defines the notion “domestic violence”, bodies having powers in the field of
prevention of the domestic violence, financial sources of these bodies,
specific measures and types for prevention of the domestic violence, grounds
for their application and protection of the family members while their
application, accountability for commitment of the domestic violence.

The law provides the following special
preventive mechanisms: official notification, emergency intervention and
official decision.

In the case of first record of the violence the
police officer should officially notify the perpetrator on inadmissibility of
the application of violence and that in case of reoccurrence the police will
apply the emergency intervention.

Decision on emergency intervention is made by the
police when there is a need of immediate protection of the violence victim, if
there is a suspicion that the behavior of the perpetrator threatens the life,
freedom or personal immunity of the victim or other family members.

By the decision on emergency intervention it may
be forbidden the perpetrator to approach the victim closer than 100 meters, in
case of necessity his/her children or other persons under his/her guardianship.

The decision on emergency intervention is in
force for 72 hours. If protection of the victim is not possible by the decision
on emergency intervention, the police apply to the court with the motion to
apply an official decision.  

By the official decision the perpetrator may be temporarily
removed from the house of the domestic violence victim regardless who is the
owner of the apartment. 

Head of the Prophylactic Department of the Public
Order Maintenance Department of RA Police Aram Smbatyan finds this provision
unrealistic.

 “We have officially
expressed our opinion and suggested amendments to ensure further efficiency of
the law based on the respect of the rights of the owner without breaking the
law. The law provides that the perpetrator could be temporarily removed from
the apartment. In that case the state should provide accommodation but this is
not stipulated by the law.  It is
inadmissible to leave in the street the offender or perpetrator”, says police
colonel.

Filaret Berikyan stresses out that this issue
will be furthered regulated with by-laws.

Based on the opinions and suggestion voiced
during the public discussion the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs will
revise the draft law “On Domestic violence” and most likely will submit to the
Government’s approval in the end of November.