A group of lawyers and human rights activists have expressed the desire to create the NO campaign against the referendum for constitutional amendments in Armenia.

Their statement has been issued by one of the co-founders of Legal Way NGO Ruben Melikyan.

The statement reads as follows:

“A couple of days ago, over 100 lawyers and human rights publicly expressed their stance and stated that the referendum initiated by the political authorities is unconstitutional in terms of content and procedure.

Unfortunately, in spite of this, the referendum was designated, and now it is becoming “de facto”.

The events of the past few days showed that the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary opposition forces haven’t expressed the desire to create a NO campaign.

Thus, besides the fact that the referendum is already seriously disputed in terms of constitutionality and lawfulness, objectively speaking, the fairness of the referendum is also becoming a problem.

In these conditions, based on the imperative to protect the values of democracy and rule of law, within the scope of the legal community, we are launching consultations to create the NO campaign, as prescribed by law and through a civil initiative.

The goals of the initiative are:

(1) to provide citizens of Armenia with the opportunity to know why they should and shouldn’t say YES to the referendum;

(2) to provide citizens of Armenia and the international community with the opportunity to be confident that the results of the referendum were controllable and appealable.

Thus, our goal is to protect the public’s opinions against the referendum for the benefit of Armenia and our citizens.

Those lawyers who share our ideas are invited to join the initiating group by leaving a comment under this statement or sending a message or calling at 060601948 or 060640640.”