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The draft proposes to provide for criminal liability for any act by an official regarding accepting or recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as part of another third republic and denying the Armenian Genocide, regardless of the manner of manifestation, by setting imprisonment for a period of ten to fifteen years: The authorized representative of the Hayakve civil initiative Aram Petrosyan said this during the extraordinary sitting of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs on December 4, presenting to the Committee members the draft law on Making Addendum to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia.

According to the rapporteur, the initiative was created as a result of the signatures of 66.000 RA citizens. He informed that in order to organize debates, he addressed 40 deputies of the RA NA Civil Contract Faction with a personal letter: The interest was below 10%.

The deputies' questions related to the reasons for not recognizing the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh during the previous authorities, the Almaty Declaration, the statements of the Russian Foreign Ministry regarding Nagorno-Karabakh, legal certainty and other topics.

The co-rapporteur Vladimir Vardanyan noted that there is an outdated norm in the second part of the draft. Taking into consideration that and the fact that Article 400.1 lacks legal certainty, the Committee Chair called on his colleagues to vote against the draft.

The conclusion of the Government was presented by the Deputy Minister of Justice Ara Mkrtchyan. According to the Deputy Minister, there are problems of legal certainty in the draft. Touching upon the second part of the proposed draft, Ara Mkrtchyan informed that criminal liability has already been established for the same act.

The Secretary of the RA NA Armenia Faction Artsvik Minasyan proposed to clearly fix and specify the forms of manifestation of the act, as well as to make more certain the scope of the persons who are the subject of the act. “In case of adopting the proposed regulation, the principle of legal certainty provided by the Constitution will be more guaranteed and specified, which is especially important when discussing the issue of bringing people to criminal liability. In addition, the proposal envisages specifying the range of persons who are the subjects of committing the prohibited act,” Artsvik Minasyan said. It was mentioned that the written proposal was sent to the official e-mail addresses of the Committee members.

Vladimir Vardanyan noticed that after not endorsing the proposal, the debate of the draft cannot be postponed for the purpose of revision. The MP informed that it was possible to do it before the debate started. The Committee Chair proposed to his colleagues not to endorse the draft.

The Committee didn’t endorse Artsvik Minasyan’s proposal.

The authorized representative of the civil initiative Aram Petrosyan in his turn proposed to the Committee to postpone the debate of the draft, taking into consideration the proposals made at the Committee sitting.

It was recorded during the sitting that the draft law cannot be postponed for the purpose of revision without the accepted proposal.

Artsvik Minasyan informed that in case of not endorsing the draft, the Faction will present a special opinion during the NA regular sitting to be held on December 5. The deputies of the same Faction Gegham Nazaryan and Mher Sahakyan will also join the special opinion.

The Committee didn’t endorse the draft on Making Addendum to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia by the Civil Initiative with the ratio of 3 votes for and 7 against.