YEREVAN. – My colleagues and I have talked a lot about some extremely incomprehensible provisions of Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code. The Venice Commission, getting familiarized with these provisions—“de facto abolishing" and "terminating in the legal system—of Article 300.1, noted that they are so vague that perhaps there is even a translation problem that these issues are worded in such a way, and it did not addressed them at all. Aram Vardevanyan, an attorney of Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan, stated this in a press conference Friday.

"The Venice Commission (…) has concluded that, in general, encroachments on the constitutional order necessarily have in them an element of violence or a threat of violence. In Article 300.1 we have no such wording (…).

The Venice Commission noted that with the wording ‘overthrow of the constitutional order,’ which there is in the Republic of Armenia, I mention it literally, ‘there is no such thing in the international track-record.’

In its closing sections, the Venice Commission noted another very important thing that when there are such types of articles with broad interpretation, they contain risks of uncertainty, and when such risks are contained, they must be narrowly interpreted—in favor of the rights of the individual.

My opinion is as follows: The wording of [Article] 300.1 is such that it does not allow narrow interpretation. And without giving such an interpretation, the requirement of the Venice Commission is violated," the attorney added, in particular.