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At April 7 regular sitting, the NA Standing Committee on Territorial Administration, Local Self-Government, Agriculture and Environment debated in the first reading and endorsed the package of the bills on Making Amendments and Addenda to the RA Law on Organization of Funerals and Operation of Cemeteries and Crematoiums and on Amending the RA Code on Administrative Offences authored by the deputies Nikolay Baghdasaryan, Sergey Movsisyan and Viktor Yengibaryan. The package will be proposed to include in the draft laws of the agendas of the NA Session and the regular sittings.

Nikolay Baghdasaryan has informed that the revision of the draft laws is conditioned by the complaints received from a number of citizens. The authors had two dozens of debates with stakeholder organizations, the clergymen and the officials, due to which a revised version had been presented. The deputy Sergey Bagratyan considered unacceptable the proposal, urging his colleagues to amend it, and the proposal was accepted.

Let us note that these amendments will refer to the newly creating cemeteries.

It was noted that in adjacent area of the city of Gyumri a typical cemetery is designed to be built.

After passing the bill the law will enter into force from 1 January 2022.

The RA Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Vache Terteryan presented the opinion of the Government, voicing some recommendations. According to him, today all communities of the republic have a problem of cemeteries. Regarding the MPs’ questions, Vache Terteryan considered inadmissible the allocation of hereditary big cemeteries. To his assessment, this sphere is one of the most controversial ones: there are numerous cases of using the soil illegally as a cemetery, and through time they have not been prevented.