Naslov
Armenia – Joint Opinion on the Draft law amending the Law on Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Organisations

Autori
Omejec, Jasna ; Velaers, Jan ; Vermeulen, Ben ; Combalia, Zoila ; Thomas, Alice

Izvornik
Armenia – Joint Opinion on the Draft law amending the Law on Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Organisations, adopted by the Venice Commission at its 114th Plenary Session (Venice, 16-17 March 2018), Venice Commission Opinion No. 909/2017 and OSCE/ODIHR Opinion No. FORB-ARM/319/2018, CDL-AD(2018)002, Strasbourg / Warsaw, 20 March 2018

Vrsta, podvrsta
Ostale vrste radova, ostalo

Godina
2018

Ključne riječi
Armenia ; freedom of conscience and religion ; religious organisations

Sažetak
The Joint Opinion of the Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR (hereinafter: the Joint opinion) assesses the compliance of the Draft Law amending the Law of the Republic of Armenia "On Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Organisations" (hereinafter: the Draft Law) with international human rights standards and OSCE commitments. The Joint Opinion raises key issues and provides indications of areas of concern. In the interest of conciseness, it focuses more on areas that require amendments or improvements than on the positive aspects of the Draft Law. The ensuing recommendations are based on relevant Council of Europe and other international human rights standards and obligations, OSCE commitments, and good national practices. Where appropriate, they also refer to the relevant recommendations made in previous legal opinions published by the OSCE/ODIHR and/or the Venice Commission. The Draft Law contains a number of improvements compared to the existing Law on the Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Organisations (1991, as last amended in 2011). The Draft Law now includes guarantees of the right to freedom of conscience and religion for every person, and not only for Armenian citizens. It also refers to the freedom to change one’s religion, faith or belief, to manifest one’s religion, faith or belief in public or private and to act according to one’s religion, faith or belief in daily life, all of which are fundamental aspects of the right to freedom of religion or belief. Further, the Draft Law specifies that the "[m]anifestation of the freedom of conscience and religion shall not be conditioned by establishing a religious organisation or by being a believer of a religious organisation", thus implying that religious/belief communities may exercise their rights without state registration. However, in order to further improve the compliance of the Draft Law with international human rights standards, the Joint opinion contains some key recommendations such as: - to amend the Draft Law to ensure that it systematically refers not only to "religion" but also to "belief" and to "religious or belief organisations" ; - to consider providing other religious groups or belief communities with a fair opportunity to benefit from some of the advantages enjoyed by the Holy Armenian Apostolic Church, while specifying reasonable criteria for accessing such advantages ; - to narrow down and qualify more strictly the limitations on the manifestation of freedom of religion or belief ; - to reconsider the blanket prohibition on foreign funding ; - to clarify the rules concerning the suspension of religious organisations.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Pravo

POVEZANOST RADA