YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—The Armenian parliament voted to appoint on Monday a senior government official as the country’s new human rights defender.

Kristine Grigoryan will formally take over as ombudswoman on February 24. Grigoryan served as a deputy justice minister justice until January 20. She had held other senior positions in the Armenian Ministry of Justice from 2015-2018.

The 40-year-old lawyer was nominated for the post by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party. She was backed by 68 members of the 107-seat National Assembly.

Both parliamentary opposition forces rejected Grigoryan’s candidacy and decided to boycott the secret ballot.

Grigoryan skirted most questions asked by opposition lawmakers during a debate that preceded the vote. She essentially avoided criticizing or questioning government policies relating to human rights. She also refused to echo opposition claims that there are political prisoners in Armenia.

Speaking shortly before Monday’s vote, opposition deputies deplored what they described as Grigoryan’s pro-government stance.

“You are being given a mandate to defend Nikol Pashinyan’s regime, rather than human rights,” Anna Mkrtchyan of the opposition Pativ Unem bloc told the incoming rights defender.

Civil Contract deputies rejected the criticism and defended Grigorian. One of them also hit out at Armenia’s outgoing ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, who has been increasingly critical of Pashinyan’s administration.

In particular, Tatoyan has denounced Armenian troop withdrawals ordered by Pashinyan following the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh and accused the authorities of undermining judicial independence and bullying opposition groups that defeated the ruling party in recent local elections.

Tatoyan also repeatedly criticized Pashinyan’s fiery rhetoric during campaigning for snap parliamentary elections held last June. The prime minister pledged to “purge” the state bureaucracy and wage “political vendettas” against local government officials supporting the opposition.

A senior Pashinyan administration official responded late last year by accusing Tatoyan of engaging in “counterrevolutionary” activities in support of opposition forces.

Speaking in the parliament on Friday, Grigoryan said that the office of the human rights defender “must not be perceived as a body alienated from the state and fighting against the state.” She said that if elected she will strive to “correct these misconceptions.”