The Constitutional amendments adopted on the basis of the referendum held on December 6, 2015. Those amendments give rise to serious concern regarding matters of freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The amendments contain statements that are ambiguous. Besides, if we take into consideration Articles of some laws that are in effect and some statements in the Draft RoA Law on Religious Organizations prepared by the Government in 2011 (which is now “frozen” because of criticism from the Venice Commission) as well as obvious facts of merger of church and State, then those new statements are indeed problematic.

“Article 17. The State and Religious Organizations

1. The freedom of activity shall be guaranteed in the Republic of Armenia for religious organizations.

2. In the Republic of Armenia, religious organizations shall be separate from the State.

Article 18. The Armenian Apostolic Holy Church

1. The Republic of Armenia shall recognize the exclusive mission of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church as the national church in the spiritual life of the Armenian people, in the development of its national culture, and in the preservation of its national identity.

2. The relationship between the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church may be reggulated by a special agreement”.

In Article 17 of the proposed draft Constitution the provision “religious organizations shall be separate from the State” replaces the provision in the currently effective Constitution “the church shall be separate from the State.”

There are grounds to believe that an attempt was made in the above-mentioned Draft Law on Religious Organizations prepared by the Government to separate through legislation the legal status of “a religious organization” from the legal status of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Probably, it is not incidental that a separate Article is devoted to the Armenian Apostolic Church (Article 18) in the draft Constitutional amendments, which indicates the “exclusive mission” of the Armenian Apostolic Church. That is an attempt is made to separate the concepts of a “religious organization” and the “Armenian Apostolic Church” that in fact become different legal categories. If the relevant Article of the 2011 Draft Law on Religious Organizations (where division is made between the Armenian Apostolic Church and other religious organizations) is retained in the future Draft, it will further strengthen the contention that Armenia is not a secular State and that the provision that religious organizations are separate from the State will not apply to the Armenian Apostolic Church. That contention becomes even more tenable, if we study a number of laws currently in force and the policies pursued by the Armenian Government in the field of religion.

For example, the laws on military service, on service in police force, on service in national security agencies and on Armenia’s rescue service as well as a number of other laws place a restriction on servicemen of those agencies. It is prohibited for them to be a member of a religious organization (it is obviously an unlawful restriction, which contradicts the UN and European human rights conventions). However, essentially this provision does not apply to followers of the Armenian Apostolic Church. It applies only to followers of other religions. The leaders of the above-mentioned agencies take part in religious ceremonies of the Armenian Apostolic Church and publicly declare that they are members of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

There is yet another problematic provision in the draft Constitutional amendments.

Article 41, which is devoted to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, states that the expression of that freedom may be restricted for reasons of national security, which contradicts the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.”However, unlike the second paragraphs of Articles 8, 10, and 11, paragraph 2 of Article 9 of the (European) Convention (on Human Rights) does not allow restrictions on the ground of national security”((CASE OF NOLAN AND K.v.Russia (Application no. 2512/04) http://legislationline.org/documents/actin/popup/id/15785)). In that respect it should also be borne in mind that clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church often make public statements urging that the rights of other religious organizations be restricted and justifying those calls by “national” and “spiritual” security. However, it is noteworthy that similar statements are publicly made also by the officials from the ruling Republican Party even from the National Assembly podium. It gives grounds to assume that religious intolerance becomes the policy adhered to by the Government.