Armenia’s controversial law on rallies passes its third reading

Mediamax news agency
28 Apr 04

YEREVAN

The Armenian National Assembly adopted the bill “On the procedure of
staging meetings, rallies, marches and demonstrations” in its third
final reading today. Armenian Minister of Justice David Arutyunyan
said earlier this week that the government had taken into
consideration the overwhelming majority of proposals received form
international organizations after having adopted the bill in its first
reading.

In particular, the minister noted, about 90 per cent of the notes made
by the OSCE office in Yerevan were taken into account. On 22 April,
the special representative of the secretary-general of the Council of
Europe in Armenia, Natalya Vutova, said that the bill “On the
procedure of staging meetings, rallies, marches and demonstrations”
did not correspond to the 11th article of the European convention on
the right to hold meetings. Vutova said this referring to the
preliminary conclusion by experts of the Venice Commission of the
Council of Europe.