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“The process is dictated by our legislative amendments, Armenia’s membership to the European institutions, such laws exist worldwide and we needed these still several years ago,” the head of the public relations and information center of the Armenian President’s Administration, expert on information security issues Ara Sagatelyan told reporters today referring to the draft on making amendments to a number of laws passed by the National Assembly.

Note that amendments were made to a number of judicial laws, envisaging to bring the articles on label and insult to the civil-legal field from the judicial one.

“The imperative of this process is to have balance between the person’s virtue and freedom of speech, ensured by the Constitution,” the expert said.

Referring to the concerns over distrust to the judicial system in case the laws are amended, A. Sagatelyan said that other states were also concerned over the issue and stated that Armenian courts should be inclined to implement the European Court precedents, recalling that Aricle 15 of the Judicial Code urges courts to use the international practice of laws.

“I think, that even if there are mistakes, they will be easily corrected during the court appeal,” he said.

Referring to a reporter’s inquiry, A. Sagatelyan said he couldn’t agree that the amendments aim at closing a newspaper or limiting the freedom of speech.

“The law should have passed still several years ago when we had article on label in the Criminal Code,” the expert said.

He explained that the current legal field may provide economic opportunities to impede to a householder’s activity.

“This is just a matter of successive judicial steps and one should never think that when speaking about the protection of a person’s rights, we aim at closing a paper, eventually, this is not the case when only papers matter, this refers to civilians and TV companies as well,” A. Sagatelyan said.

He assured that the amended legislation will provide opportunity for the mass media to be more socially responsible.

“The main criterion for media is the social responsibility worldwide and the media solve the issues of social responsibility within the framework of self-regulation. Self-regulation does not act in Armenia for several reasons,” A. Sagatelyan said.