During the period from the first to the second reading, the draft did not undergo technical and content amendments. In Article 13.2.1 of the law, I proposed to add the word ‘or parent’ after the word ‘child,’ in which case the person or persons who don’t have the RA citizenship and have a citizen child or parent can get the RA citizenship. This was stated by the author of the draft law, the member of the NA Civil Contract Faction Rustam Bakoyan, during the extraordinary sitting of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs held on October 23. The author of the initiative presented the draft law on Making Amendments and Addenda to the Law on Citizenship of the Republic of Armenia for debate by the Committee in the second reading.
According to the deputy, the proposed addendum creates an opportunity to grant citizenship to the adult child on the basis of the parent’s citizenship as well.
“Quite favorable conditions will be created especially for national minorities to acquire the RA citizenship,” Rustam Bakoyan noted and added that there were no proposals regarding the draft from the first to the second reading.
The deputy of the NA Armenia Faction Gegham Nazaryan inquired from the author of the draft how many national minorities there are in the RA and whether it is possible for other representatives of foreign nationalities to acquire citizenship of our country under the name of national minority. In response to the MP’s question, Rustam Bakoyan stated that there are 11 national minorities in the RA.
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“After Armenians, Yazidis are the largest nationality in the RA, then Russians, Assyrians, Kurds, Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, Georgians, Greeks, Jews, Belarusians. The adoption of the law will not significantly affect the demographic picture,” the deputy said.
The Committee Chair also addressed the issue raised by Gegham Nazaryan. Vladimir Vardanyan mentioned that it refers to reserving the right of the above-mentioned persons to apply to the RA authorities for citizenship.
“In a certain sense, we are following the path of tightening. With the draft, we stipulate that it is possible to apply for the RA citizenship if the citizen has lived in the RA permanently and legally for at least 1 year and has the appropriate status,” Vladimir Vardanyan said.
The deputy of the NA Civil Contract Faction Alkhas Ghazaryan made a related report. She noted that the Committee endorsed the draft.
The endorsement of the Government was presented by the Head of the Migration and Citizenship Service of the RA Ministry of Internal Affairs Armen Ghazaryan. The representative of the Ministry noted that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cooperated with Rustam Bakoyan throughout the compilation of the draft, all the proposals were adopted.
The Committee approved the draft by voting for it.
National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia
