On 16 July, Mr. Artyom Mesropyan, Lawyer/Expert of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, participated in the first discussion on the draft election procedure of members and alternate members of Civil Society Faction of the Multi-stakeholder Group of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative of the Republic of Armenia. Members of the RA EITI MSG, representatives of the civil society organizations and the representative of the Armenia’s secretariat of EITI participated in the discussion as well.
During the discussion the main provisions of the draft election procedure were presented, after which the participants presented their recommendations.
The ALA representative drew the attention of the participants to the fact that the presented document has shortcomings in both substantial and logical structure and needs further development. Specifically:
- It was proposed to remove all the provisions from the preamble of the election procedure, which do not refer to the electoral procedure and baselessly overload the draft.
- It was suggested that the newly formed CSB, in addition to the MSG’s working system, also have its own procedure, which, among other things, will also define the procedure and cases of the cessation of the powers of the member of the CSB.
- Taking into account that paragraphs 8 and 13 of the Draft Election Procedure indicate that CSB representatives (candidates) should have the capacity to carry out their responsibilities, which is taken from the MSG working procedure, it is recommended to clarify what capacity is mentioned.
- According to point 13 of the draft Election Procedure, NGOs and foundations registered in the Republic of Armenia are entitled to participate in the electoral process of the CSB representatives, which are included in the list of “Stakeholders of the RA EITI Communication Strategy and Action Plan and / or during the course of the last 1 year, they have publicly and consistently expressed a position regarding the responsible mining policies and / or potential impacts, publish information about their activities, financing sources and amounts received. In the context of the above, it has been suggested to provide opportunity to elect or to be elected to all CSOs during the election of the members of CSB, or establish standards that would be considered acceptable by interested NGOs and other actors, given that the list of NGOs included in the above list is incomplete and a number of active NGOs interested in mining and in environmental issues are not included in this list. In addition the requirements for NGOs are not clearly defined in the mentioned point and thus it may provide opportunity for decretory approach during the selection of NGOs.
- It was suggested that the one structure shall be entitled to nominate one candidate to CSB.
Other participants of the discussion presented proposals as well. It was decided that paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 of the draft Election Procedure would be referred to during the next working session.