On May 21, the National Assembly began the work of the regular sittings. The parliament approved the agenda of the regular sittings.
Before turning to the agenda items, the MPs observed a one-minute silence in memory of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi, the members of the Government and the crew accompanying them, who died because of the helicopter crash.
Afterwards the amendments being proposed to the laws on Public Service, on Local Self-Government and on Local Self-Government in the city of Yerevan were debated and passed in the first reading.
The package of drafts is aimed at correcting the legislative ambiguities, fixing the prohibition of the members of the Community of Council of Elders from holding a public or a public service positions. The RA Deputy Minister of Justice Karen Karapetyan said this and specified that with the legislative amendments of the law on Public Service implemented on June 9, 2022 in one case prohibition of holding position in state and local government bodies by the persons holding public or public service positions is designed, and in another case – that kind of regulation is not designed to the laws on Local Self-Government and on Local Self-Government in the city of Yerevan.
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A number of members of the Council of Elders combine their position with public and public service positions because of this misunderstanding. After the proposed amendments come into effect, during the upcoming election of the Council of Elders, there will be an absolute prohibition regarding the incompatibility of the members of the Council of Elders of the community and public and public service positions: The members of the Council of Elders will not be able to combine their position with public and public service positions.
The persons with transition provisions, who before this law coming into force combined the public and public service positions with the position of the Council of Elders, will be able to continue combining the tenure before the convocation of the first sitting of the newly elected Council of Elders.
According to the Deputy Minister, at the core of the goal of establishing incompatibility demands is preventing the cause of possible situations of conflict of interests, ensuring the principle of the powers’ checks and balance.
Touching upon the urgency of the adoption of the legislative package, the rapporteur conditioned it by the circumstance that related to the cases of holding public or public service positions by the members of the Council of Elders the term for the procedures charged by the Corruption Prevention Commission is 90 days, and May 29 is the deadline.
In the Q&A session, reference was made to the issue if the work of the member of the Council of Elders is not problematic in terms of conflict of corruption risks and interests in the private sector.
Karen Karapetyan clarified that a new regulation is not proposed with the legislative package, that prohibition was defined from 2018. He noted that the participation of the business sector in the activity of the Council of Elders is also not defined by law, the structures of the decrease and removal of the risks of the interests’ conflict are also available. The member of the Council of Elders with business interests passes special processes of incompatibility and integrity building checking, submits integrity building additional documents, abstains from the debates referring to his/her interests and participating in voting.
Alkhas Ghazaryan informed about the endorsement of the Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs.
National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia