Civil Contract (Armenia)

Civil Contract
President Arayik Harutyunyan
Spokesperson Alen Simonyan
Founded December 9, 2013 (2013-12-09) (as public–political union)
May 30, 2015 (2015-05-30) (as political party)
Website
civilcontract.am

Civil Contract (Armenian: Քաղաքացիական պայմանագիր, K'aghak'aciakan paymanagir) is an political party in Armenia, which was established on July 24, 2013 as public–political union. The governing board of the contract was formed on December 9, 2013. On May 30, 2015, it becomes political party. First election of party been Hrazdan majoral election in 2016, where candidate of party, ex-major of Hrazdan Sasun Mikayelyan defeated by RPA candidate, Hrazdan major Aram Danielyan.

About the civil contract

“Civil contract" came to be known for the first time on January 23, 2013 when MP Nikol Pashinyan from the opposition block publicized a project in the newspaper "Haykakan Zhamanak" about establishing a new public-political union. For several months afterwards the text of the civil contract was discussed on different platforms, with different organizations and individuals actively engaged in public-political life of the Republic of Armenia. On July 24 the new updated version of the "Civil Contract" was publicized and, hence, the establishment of a new political union in Armenia was announced.

“Civil Contract" announces that until its first Treaty Conference the text of the contract will be worked out and undergo amendments since some points of the document need comments and clarification. The proclamation of those fundamentals will be followed by the creation of a detailed road map for the development of each of the mentioned fields.

Governing board of the civil contract

On December 9, 2013, during the press conference at "Ani Plaza" hotel the Governing Board of the Civil Contract was presented. The governing board was formed in pursuance of the 7th clause of the contract, according to which it is a collegial body that takes decisions on a consensus basis.

The governing board does not have a chairman or a director. The function of the Governing Board is to carry out the current management of the civil contract as well as to organize the first treaty conference of the contract during which a new governing board will be elected and a decision will be made about the future organizational and legal form of CC (civil contract) activities.

Incumbent staff of the governing board

"Civil contract" return fund

“Civil Contract" Return Fund was established to ensure that the funding of the civil contract is in compliance with RA legislation and with the aim to organize its activities in line with democratic rules.

The idea is the following: funds donated to “civil contract” will be stored on Fund’s account and in its vault. The costs will be conducted under the supervision of the board of trustees. The members of the Board of Trustees are independent from the Governing Board and carry out civilian control over the Fund's expenditures.

Besides, the 9 g) clause of the fundamental document of the civil contract states that “citizens who have donated money or property to the Contract shall have the right to request information on spending, and their demands are to be satisfied within three days' time”. In other words, the transparency of the donated money to the civil contract is guaranteed not only by the RA existing legislation but also by the fundamental document of the contract. Here are a few clauses of the fundamental document related to the funding of the civil contract initiative.

Board of trustees

On February 22, 2014 it was declared about the creation of the “civil contract” board of trustees. On the same day Haykak Arshamyan was elected the chairman of the board of Trustees. Members of the Board of Trustees:

On February 22, 2014 Hakob Simidyan was appointed the director of the fund.

Funding of the "civil contract"

On April 26, 2014 the governing board members of the "civil contract" published an article entitled "Financing Politics and Civil Contract", in which they touched upon the issues of financing public and political life of Armenia and its transparency. “Financing politics is one of the essential entangled knots of the history of the Third Republic. How is the public-political activity financed in Armenia? It's a question the proper answer of which is not known. One can guess, put forward hypotheses but the society does not have a reliable and verifiable answer to the question... The most popular answer is that "we are funded by thousands of our supporters". This is an answer, which generates new questions: whom and how do the supporters give the money? Who takes it and under what conditions? How do others learn whether their retainer has donated that much, more or less money...?

From the very first stage of the debates over establishing “civil contract” public–political union the issues about funding the activities of the contract have been the subject of heated debate. How is the contract going to be financed? Who will be financing it? The answers to these questions were principal for us. And if we have serious ambition to achieve fundamental changes in public–political relations, we need to try to work ourselves out of the Armenian traditional funding mechanisms of political activity. We have formulated the problem the following way: if we need 1000 AMD, we need to find not a single person that will give us that money but we need to find 1000 people each of whom will donate 1 AMD.”

References

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External links

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