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“Dear compatriots of Armenia, Artsakh and Diaspora,

Hundred years ago this day the parliament of the First Republic of Armenia, the Council of Armenia, convened its first sitting headed by Avetik Sahakyan. In the newly independent country, which has been borne as a result of May heroic battles and has had hard days, the time of the state building and law-making work began from that historical day.

The work of the Armenian First Parliament and the passed path was complicated as its times were, but it has a unique role in the elaboration of the national legislation, the formation of the judicial system and the organization of the Armenia’s state and public life. The Council of Armenia began functioning in conditions of the state power bodies not being still formed and often also fulfilled the work of the executive power, passing not only numerous laws and legal documents not being in force which was conditioned by the fight against famine and epidemics and even the dictate of the organization education.

Hardly after one year of the formation, the Council of Armenia worked out with European model a democratic electoral law appropriate for the time and conditions and by common, direct, equal voting and secret ballot organized the elections of the new parliament.

The Council of Armenia was genuinely a representation body, where the representatives of all main political forces, nationalities, as well as the Western Armenian immigration were involved.

It is surprising, but being not a formed parliament through elections, it resolutely created and developed the traditions of the parliamentary democracy, formed government culture, which had also great role for the development of the Armenian political parties and political thought.

Dear compatriots, I congratulate all of us on the occasion of this innermost anniversary and I wish that we should evaluate our history as granted and be proud of it.

I wish that we’ll preserve and cherish the self-sovereignty of our Motherland, the third statehood created at such an expensive price at the end of the 20^th century and do everything for the sake of tomorrow to make the Republic of Armenia a democratic, social, legal state in all aspects,” the congratulatory address by the RA NA President Ara Babloyan reads.