"FAVORABLE" DISCUSSION WITH TEN MPs
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[09:17 pm] 19 May, 2008
Today before the National Assembly of Armenia passed to its
routine activities NA Speaker Tigran Torossian congratulated Vahan
Hovhannissian on the election of ARF Dashnaktsutiun Leader and Heghine
Bisharian on the election of OYK Leader.
Afterwards Tigran Torossian presented the draft law to the amended
Law on "Meetings, demonstrations, marches and rallies."
Reminder: the law was last amended on March 17, 2008.
The Armenian parliamentarians haven’t got familiarized with the
conclusions of the Venice Commission yet.
Tigran Torossian said that they can read the whole text on the Internet
website in an English version.
Asked whether the NA has followed the recommendations and whether
the amendments meet their requirements, the NA Speaker said, "The
legislative initiative stems from the provisions of the memorandum."
The draft law allows holding spontaneous meetings with certain time
limitation. The ban on mass meetings can be appealed in the court. A
spontaneous meeting can last no longer than six hours. The next meeting
on the same matter will not be considered as spontaneous and can be
held after submitting a notification to the City Hall.
The authorized body is entitled to reject the notification if he has
"grounded official information" about forthcoming mass disorders and
so on.
There were about ten MPs in the National Assembly during the discussion
of the draft law. Most of them were Zharangutiun parliamentarians. The
draft law will likely be passed tomorrow after a "favourable"
discussion. Naturally only Zharangutiun MPs and nonpartisan deputy
Victor Dallakian complained of its shortcomings.