The Draft Law “On Missing Persons” is completed but it has not entered the National Assembly yet
06:22, August 31, 2012 | Announcements | The Rights of Conflict Victims
The international day of missing persons is celebrated today, on August 30. It was first celebrated in 3 countries of the South Caucasus in 2004 by South Caucasus offices of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly.
In order to solve the problems of missing persons and their families, still in March, 2010 the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs initiated drafting of the RA Draft Law “On Missing Persons” where representatives of a number of state institutions, namely the RA National Assembly, the President’s Staff, the Ministry of Defense, the Police, National Security Service, Ministry of Healthcare, Ministry of Labour and Social Issues, Human Rights Defender, as well as International Committee of Red Cross and Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor were involved.
The drafting of the Law completed in April, 2012, after which the Interdepartmental Committee should have discussed it to put it under discussion in the National Assembly. However, there is no progress related to final presentation of the Draft Law.
Welcoming drafting of the RA Draft Law on “Missing Persons”, HCA-Vanadzor, at the same time expresses its concern that in the absence of the law, many legal, social, healthcare and other issues of missing persons remain unsolved.
Taking into consideration the unsettled conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, and the fact that a number of civilians and servicemen went missing or were taken hostage, as well as the need to provide their families with legal, social, psychological and healthcare assistance, we find the adoption of the Law on “Missing Persons” to be of utmost importance.
August 30, 2012
Vanadzor