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On March 10 with the initiative of the RA NA Standing Committee on Defense, National Security and Internal Affairs parliamentary hearings on the draft law of the RA law on the Disciplinary Rule of the RA Armed Forces (AF) were held, in which the NA deputies, the representatives of the executive power, power structures, international and local NGOs, the Human Rights Defender/Ombudsman, and journalists participated.

The Chairman of the RA NA Standing Committee on Defense, National Security and Internal Affairs Hrayr Karapetyan in his speech considered the draft law under debate important and mentioned that now the RA AF disciplinary relations had been regulating by the decision made by the Government in 1996, which did not correspond to the RA Constitution and the RA law on Legal Acts.

The Chairman of the Committee said that the bill had been sent to the international experts, OSCE Yerevan Office supported the Committee by presenting the experts’ opinion on the bill.

The RA Defense Deputy Minister Ara Nazaryan introduced the present situation of the regulating relations, the problems and suggested solutions.

The Deputy Head of Legal Department of the RA Defense Ministry Sasun Simonyan presented the bill and turned to the OSCE/ODIHR experts’ proposals.

The speakers also answered a number of questions concerning the problems of the disciplinary battalion, the soldiers' rights and responsibilities, the kinds of the disciplinary violations and the specification of the penalties for them, the fulfillment of the mechanisms of different provisions of the draft law, the correspondence of these provisions to the RA Constitution.

The OSCE/ODIHR experts, the NA Deputies, the representatives of different NGOs gave speeches and they had the same opinion in the most important issues.

The chairman of the Committee Hrayr Karapetyan expressed his gratitude to the participants for the interested debates and assured that all realistic and valuable proposals would be included in the bill of the law.