Unlawful mentality continues till now: human rights advocate

The statement of the deputy finance minister Arman Poghosyan was a bad surprise, human rights advocate Ruben Melikyan said, speaking to Aysor.am, referring to the phrase he voiced during the public discussion of amendments in tax legislation.

During the discussion Arman Poghosyan stated that if the legal services be relieved of VAT or will pay low taxes all will get use of it, including the criminals. “Must the people subsidize the criminals?” he stated.

Chairman of the Bar Chamber Ara Zohrabyan said it is rather painful that a state official names a defendant a criminal. “It is a rather serious attitude and labeling,” he said.

Melikyan said that the concern relates not to words but the legal-political approaches and philosophy.

“I have also received answer to the question on how this bill has been initiated as there was no such public demand. Let us not forget that it is being spoken about withdrawing attorneys and few other groups from regulations and forming special negative regulations for them. Let us not forget that we are dealing not with the withdrawal of privilege but with an attempt to apply discriminative approach toward the lawyers,” the human rights advocate said.

Melikyan said that some people in the Finance Ministry think that the attorneys are working with criminals and that the state should not “subsidize the criminals.”

“This approach is mildly speaking unacceptable and must receive a strict response. We see that unlawful way of thinking still continues in separate circles. We are still forced to prove elementary truths. We were to close the page of such mentality long ago, but it appeared that we had not,” he said, adding that there are many challenges and a need to mobilize resources while they are forced to deal with such like issues which is not serious.