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On October 28, the National Assembly in the first reading debated the legislative package on Mass Media authored by the deputies of the NA Civil Contract Faction Artur Hovhannisyan, Vahagn Hovakimyan, Taguhi Ghazaryan and Sargis Khandanyan, as well as on Administrative Infringements and envisaging amendments and addenda to the Civil Code.

According to Artur Hovhannisyan, the initiation of the amendments is conditioned by the out of date of the law. “The law on Mass Media written in 2003, in fact does not reflect the regulations on the whole media field, does not solve all the problems, and new media platforms emerged. They are on social networks, in the shape of domains and websites, which spread various information. They don’t have identification data, by which the information consumer or state will be able identify that information sources and carry out regulations. Some media, organizations carrying out news activity in accordance with the law on Mass Media, take diverse information, quote to those non identified sources and get deprived of responsibility by the law on Mass Media,” Artur Hovhannisyan noted.

The authors propose to add in the law a new notion: ‘non-identified sources’ which means that it is not possible to clarify the person managing creating those sources. It is proposed to establish responsibility for the media in case of quoting the non-identified sources.

It is designed to also amend the article on transparency of the financial sources.

In case of not presenting the report on time or quoting the sources banned by law it is proposed to fine the person carrying out news activity three-five hundred fold of the established minimum salary. The media carrying out activity on the internet cannot be accredited in the state structures, which will not present the financial report and the identification data in the fixed term.

The RA Deputy Minister of Justice Armen Hovhannisyan Presented the positive opinion of the Government.

The member of the NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sport Hasmik and Hakobyan presented the endorsement on the package.