The purpose of the amendments in the Criminal Codes and administrative offenses is to prevent cases of damage to roads, road engineering structures, as well as violations of the order of using the roads and to tighten the measures of liability provided by the legislation. This was stated by the RA Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Kristine Ghalechyan at the sitting of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs. She mentioned that the regulations of the law adopted in 2006 need to be reviewed.
The Deputy Minister informed that many cases of closing and removing road signs, installing illegal signs, theft of road signs, and creating obstacles for traffic were recorded. The analyzes of the Ministry have shown that in the last three years only 661 road signs and 670-line meter blocks were stolen and damaged from the interstate and republican roads. According to the rapporteur, every offence, stolen or damaged traffic sign increases the risk of accidents.
It is proposed to amend Article 140 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. It is proposed to review the fines of Article 150.2 of the Code, by tripling them as well.
The MPs Karen Sarukhanyan, Gegham Nazaryan, Arpine Davoyan, Vigen Khachatryan, Vladimir Vardanyan, Lilit Minasyan and Armen Khachatryan touched upon the statistics of violations in their questions and remarks, the expediency of clarifying some terms, the consequences of setting up false signals, the necessity to implement preventive measures, the application of measures of liability applied to unscrupulous organizations serving the road, the proper provision of markings and other issues.
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Kristine Ghalechyan mentioned that appropriate regulations and guidelines are being developed especially for community roads, as the latter have specific features and are different from interstate and republican roads. The Deputy Minister agreed that there is a problem regarding the communities, which they are trying to solve in a short period of time.
According to Kristine Ghalechyan, regardless of everything, everyone should take part in solving problems and their regulation within the scope of their responsibility.
In the related report, the MP Alkhas Ghazaryan underscored that the initiative is aimed at ensuring traffic safety, and proposed to vote for it.
According to the deputy of the Civil Contract Faction Armen Khachatryan, the problem is not solved by only increasing the fine, after adopting the norm, post-legislative supervision should be carried out to understand the resulting index.
The deputy of Armenia Faction Gegham Nazaryan spoke about the importance of holding the competent authorities responsible for improperly implementing the measures aimed at ensuring road safety.
The deputy from the Civil Contract Faction Vigen Khachatryan is in favor of fines, but he thinks that it is incomplete if it is tightened unilaterally. According to the deputy, citizens should be protected from unscrupulous officials and community leaders, and if a person damaged a car as a result of unscrupulous work, then he should definitely receive compensation from the person who did the damage.
In his final speech, the Deputy Minister assured that the raised systemic problems are in the center of attention of the Ministry.
National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia