Armenian parliament passes several bills
The Armenian National Assembly resumed its regular session on Friday, with lawmakers voting on a number of draft laws debated at Thursday’s sitting.
In particular, the bill calling for changes to the law on bankruptcy and the related laws was adopted in the second reading with 111 votes for.
Meanwhile, MPs voted overwhelmingly to reject the proposed amendments and supplements to the Criminal Procedure Code of Armenia.
Nikolay Baghdasaryan, one of the authors of the bill, said that there were errors in the wording of the bill as some words were missing in the version submitted to the Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs. He asked lawmakers to vote down the bill so that they could fix the errors and introduce the correct version.
Vladimir Vardanyan, Chairman of the Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs, said that in addition to technical issues, there were also problems with deadlines, as the law was supposed to come into force in October, but in that case there were fears that deputies would not be able to correct it fully.
The parliament passed in the second and final reading the bill that would make changes to the Criminal Code of Armenia. A total of 116 MPs voted for the measure.
Lawmakers voted 80 to 33 with 2 abstentions to adopt the package of draft laws on making amendments to the National Assembly Rules of Procedure.
Also, deputies passed the package of draft laws on amendments and supplements to the law “On Public Service” in a vote of 101 for and 17 against.
Opposition Bright Armenia faction MP Taron Simonyan said that the purpose of the bill was acceptable and praiseworthy, but as a result of its debates a number of problems were revealed, including the fact that the social impact of the bill had not been assessed. "We do not know what impacts it may have. The draft requires persons not financed by the state budget to declare their income and expenses, which is still incomprehensible to us. This may lead to undesirable consequences, thus we will vote against it in the first reading,” he said.
The bill on making amendments and supplements to the law “On the Investigative Committee of Armenia" was adopted in the first reading with 118 votes in favor.
The parliament also passed the draft law calling for changes to Armenia’s Code on Administrative Offenses in a vote of 82 for, 14 against and 19 abstentions.
Opposition Prosperous Armenia faction MP Mikayel Melkumyan said that his faction would abstain from voting.