“Article 191 of the Constitution of Armenia and Article 2 of the enabling law vest the HRDA with the mandate to protect human rights. The HRDA reported that, in practice, it carries out a broad range of human rights protection and promotion activities.

In particular, the SCA acknowledges that the HRDA has been engaging actively to publicly address key human rights issues in the country, including discrimination, and the rights of women and LGBTQI people.

The HRDA also reported that it has advocated for amendments to its enabling law which would make explicit its mandate to promote human rights and that these amendments have been tabled to and discussed by the Parliament.

The SCA defines promotion to include those functions which seek to create a society where human rights are more broadly understood and respected.

The SCA encourages the HRDA to continue to interpret its mandate in a broad manner and recommends it to continue to advocate for the adoption of the proposed amendments which would mandate it with explicit functions to promote all human rights set out in international, regional and domestic instruments.

The SCA refers to Paris Principle A.3 and to its General Observation 1.2 on ‘Human Rights mandate’.”