The Armenian Ombudsman has raised concerns over two provisions in Armenia’s current law “On Human Organs and (or) Tissues Transplantation” which are contradictory and create conditions for “arbitrary interpretation, implementation and misuse.”

Ombudsman Armen Harutyunyan on Tuesday filed a case with the Constitutional Court disputing the constitutionality of the amendments moved to the law in April last year.

Under those amendments, organs and tissues cannot be taken from a dead person for transplantation purposes only if a person, when alive, explicitly refused to become a donor after death.

Ara Babloyan, Chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Health Сare, Maternity and Childhood says that “if a person has not given his/her consent (to become a donor after death), it means that s/he agrees to be a donor, and his/her organs can freely be used.”

“Those who have not refused to become donors are recognized as donors. This is done in almost 60 percent of European countries,” Babloyan says. The Ombudsman is against this very term, considering it to be anti-constitutional.

“A human being decides and disposes of his/her body’s fortune, including after his/her death. Whereas the disputable term defines that a human being is a cadaverous donor after his/her death if when alive, he/she does not refuse to be a donor, a priori after death the fortune of his/her body is already decided,” the public human rights defender said in a letter submitted to the Constitutional Court.

Independent lawyer Ara Mikaelyan believes that the logic “if not against then for” in the law creates room for various misuse and violations.

“A person may be involved in a car accident and survive, may be it will be possible to save his or her life, however, taking into consideration the existence of the provision (in the law), they may not save that person only in order to sell the organs later at quite a price without waiting for the consent of the relatives of the dead,” Mikaelyan told ArmeniaNow.

Nevertheless, Babloyan says that the law regulates this issue, and that “Armenian medical centers have not registered misuse till now.”

“In Armenia the law strictly fixes that an organ is transplanted only under gratuitous conditions, that is to say, an organ is not an object of trade,” Babloyan says.

Whereas, Mikaelyan opposes, saying that “currently misuse is registered in Armenia, too, and after such amendment to the law, the number of violations will increase.”

According to the data provided by the Ministry of Health, annually 1,000 transplantation surgeries are conducted in Armenia, each costing about 15,000 Euros, however, the donorship is provided free of charge.

Babloyan stresses that it was possible to use the experience of European countries, when a person’s consent to become a donor is mentioned in the driver’s license.

“However, our public is not ready for it yet: they say: are you issuing a driver’s license to me or a death certificate?” Babloyan says.