Supporting electoral reform

Supporting electoral reform in Armenia is one of the priorities of the OSCE Office in Yerevan. It co-operates closely with the National Assembly, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) and civil society to bring Electoral Code legislation into full compliance with international election standards. It also relies on post-election recommendations issued by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the Council of Europe's Venice Commission to promote legislative reform (http://www.osce.org/odihr-elections/28832.html).

The Office assists in the training and capacity-building of election officials. In 2007 it supported the publication of a training manual and reference material outlining the voting process. Furthermore, a video describing electoral procedures was produced to supplement the written materials for the second round of training sessions, which was conducted before the 2008 presidential elections. In addition, the Office supported the CEC in updating the electronic network for transferring of the election results on the polling day, thus streamlining the transparent and reliable reporting on election results.

In order to promote public control over the electoral processes and ensure availability of reliable and unbiased information about elections, the Office supported domestic observer groups in monitoring the presidential poll and the elections of the Yerevan City Council.

In 2009, the Office supported the CEC in hosting the annual conference of the Association of Eastern European Election officials in Yerevan. The three-day international event, which gathered some 120 participants, was devoted to the Judicial Protection of Electoral Rights.

To raise public awareness of the electoral rights and corresponding procedures the Office supported the CEC in producing Public Service Announcements describing the polling procedures (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n10BAWCgCYU).

The Office chairs a Working Group on Elections involving the main international donors, which serves as a forum for information and co-operation on election-related assistance.

Promoting freedom of assembly

The Office supports and promotes the right to freedom of assembly in general, but also in the specific context of election campaigning, when the right to conduct peaceful rallies becomes one of the criteria for evaluating a country's compliance with international standards for democratic elections.

Since 2003, the Office has worked towards the adoption of a progressive legislative framework guaranteeing freedom of assembly. It facilitated an expert review by the ODIHR and the Venice Commission of the Law on Conducting Rallies, Demonstrations and Marches, which was passed by the National Assembly in April 2004.

The Office promotes raised public awareness on the procedures pertaining to the right to assemble by producing and disseminating public service announcements on the matter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_9vd9x8YU8). Likewise, the Office works to train the corresponding stakeholders of the process (e.g. staff of municipality, judges, political parties and NGOs) on the requirements of the law.

In 2009 the Office supported the ODIHR-lead project on public monitoring of the freedom of assembly in Armenia (http://www.osce.org/odihr/item_11_23835.html), which observed all major rallies in Yerevan in the course of 2009 and summarised its findings in a final report (English version: http://www.armhels.org/DownloadFile/290eng-Freedom_of_Peaceful_Assembly.pdf and Armenian version: http://www.armhels.org/DownloadFile/905arm-Xaxax__havaqneri__azatutyun.pdf).