{"id":27737,"date":"2016-05-12T10:07:08","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T10:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am?p=27737"},"modified":"2016-05-17T20:42:33","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T20:42:33","slug":"venice-comission-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/venice-comission-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Venice Commission and OSCE\/ODIHR: Joint opinion about Women’s representation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Venice Commission and \u00a0OSCE\/ODIHR<\/a> \u00a0has published its Preliminary Joint Opinion on the Draft Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Opinion \u00a0about Women’s representation:<\/p>\n

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117. The draft code increases the previously used gender quota. While the former system provided for a 20 per cent quota within brackets, but starting from bracket 2-6, the new one introduces a 25 per cent quota, starting from bracket 1-4. However, it might have limited impact. Indeed, it is only imposed on the first part of the national electoral lists for the National Assembly, which are closed lists, starting from the top of the list (Article 83.4). For the district lists, the requirement is that not more than 75 per cent of the total number of candidates can be of the same gender (Article 83.10), but there is no requirement concerning the placement on the list since the lists are open. As such, it is likely that every party passing the threshold will have at least one woman elected from the national list, but there is no such guarantee concerning district lists. In a positive step, Article 100.3 assures that, when filling vacancies in the first part of the national list, the underrepresented gender should get the seat if the gender in that party would otherwise be less than 20 per cent.<\/p>\n

118. Article 130.2 has the same requirement for gender balance for the councils of elders of Yerevan, Gyumri and Vanadzor as there is for the National Assembly. In addition, Article 141.5 guarantees that every party will not have all its seats filled by candidates of the same gender. Since the rule is applied to all the seats in the council, the balance may be better than in the parliament. It is again positive that Article 141.7 assures that when filling vacancies, the underrepresented gender should get the seat if the share of the gender of that party would otherwise be less than 20 per cent.<\/p>\n

119. For candidates to council of elders, other than Yerevan, Gyumri and Vanadzor there are no gender requirements.<\/p>\n

120. The Venice Commission and the OSCE\/ODIHR have stated, on several occasions, that \u201cthe small number of women in politics remains a critical issue which undermines the full functioning of democratic processes\u201d. In line with the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Report on the Method of Nomination of Candidates within Political Parties, electoral quotas are regarded as temporary special measures that can act as an \u201cappropriate and legitimate measure to increase women\u2019s parliamentary representation. It is for each country to decide how to improve gender equality. However, the Venice Commission considers that, if legislative quotas are imposed, they \u201cshould provide for at least 30 per cent of women on party lists, while 40 or 50 is preferable\u201d,\u00a0 in order to be effective.<\/p>\n

121. It is therefore recommended that the draft code provide a more effective quota for women\u2019s representation on candidate lists, such as placing women among every two or three candidates. The draft code should also ensure that the chosen quota is effective not only for the registration of the candidate list, but also when distributing mandates.<\/p>\n

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The \u00a0full \u00a0text of the opinion is available here.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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GTG\u00a0 Recommendations on women\u2019s political participation\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Read more \u00a0on our Website:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Electoral code: What worries women<\/a><\/p>\n

Khachatur Qoqobelyan: \u201dI am even for 50\/50\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Elinar Vardanyan. \u201cThe number of mandates intended for women is going to share\u201d\/video\/<\/a><\/p>\n

David Harutyunyan. \u201cI am much more optimistic about chances of women being elected.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Women\u2019s political representation: states must go beyond quotas and introduce the principle of parity<\/a><\/p>\n

One woman in each quarter: A new amendment to the Electoral Code<\/a><\/p>\n

GTG Recommendations on women\u2019s political participation<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOur society is like a family, where the mother is missing \u2026\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The issue of women\u2019s participation cannot be secondary\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Why are women MPs silent on quota<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEnsuring not less than 30\/70 proportion of women and men in the lists of political parties\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

It would require at least a 200 years to reach equal representation of women and men in the RoA National Assembly<\/a><\/p>\n

Reformed Constitution and women\u2019s rights. Politicians\u2019 interpretation<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The Venice Commission and \u00a0OSCE\/ODIHR \u00a0has published its Preliminary Joint Opinion on the Draft Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia.   The Opinion \u00a0about Women’s representation: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[119,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-119","category-129"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}