Some members of the Georgian parliament will be deprived of their monthly wages. According to Georgian mass media, David Bakradze, the Speaker of the Georgian parliament, made such a decision the other day. He is going to punish MPs absent from plenary meetings in that way, because they disrupted the votes on a set of bills. www.aravot.am inquired from Samvel Nikoyan, the Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly, how our MPs that had been engaged in election campaign and had been absent from work for a few days already should be punished. Let us remind that this 4-day session of the National Assembly failed, because of the lack of a quorum. Samvel Nikoyan, making the example of different parliaments around the world, said, “We are talking about those who were absent from the meetings of the commission and those absent from the vote during the plenary meeting of the National Assembly, but if there was no meeting and no vote – i.e. no one came – then that provision of the law cannot be enforced. Do you know any parliament in the world that holds a meeting three weeks before an election?” In response to our question why then meetings were set for those days, when the world experience showed that they would not take place as a rule, the National Assembly Speaker said, “Originally, according to the law passed 5 years ago, there is a schedule of meetings, but it has never been possible in both our and any other parliament around the world to organize a meeting 3 weeks before an election.”
As for imposing penalties on the MPs that had been absent from work and had disrupted the meetings, Mr. Nikoyan noted, “The future parliament will give answers to all your questions. Given the fact that a commission on ethics has been established all those punishments provided for by the law will be imposed. Both the wages and other issues that exist.”
Let us mention that on April 10, 11 and 12, issues related to reproductive health of human, disciplinary regulations of the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia, administrative violations, passport of citizen of the Republic of Armenia, criminal procedure, social security of servicemen and their families and many other issues should have been discussed during the meetings of the National Assembly.
Lusine BUDAGHYAN
