At March 23 sitting of the National Assembly, the NA draft decision on Extending the Term of the Powers of the Inquiry Committee for studying the effectiveness of the measures taken by the Government and the Commandant’s Office to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID 19), to mitigate or eliminate the consequences of the epidemic in the fight against the virus, as well as to study the effectiveness and legality of restrictions of human rights and fundamental freedoms during the state of emergency was debated.

The Chair of the NA Inquiry Committee Arkady Khachatryan informed that because of the unleashed war, as well as in the conditions of the overloading of the state system it had been not possible to ensure the regular activities of the Committee. During the past two months the Committee had done large scale work. 10 interpellations had been done on 333 questions, and two questions were addressed to the Government. Questions were addressed to the Central Bank, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Audit Chamber, the HRD Office and Hayastan All Armenian Fund. All questions and current answers were posted on the official website of the Inquiry Committee. It is expected to get complete information from the Government until March 30. Afterwards the NA Inquiry Committee will begin large scale work to analyze the information and to make conclusions, will work with the experts, after which relevant officials will be invited. To end the work of the Committee it is proposed to extend the powers of the latter for six months.

The RA NA Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan was interested in the fact if the snap parliamentary elections in the country would be held six months before, then what the destiny of the Committee would be.

Arkady Khachatryan is convinced that in case of holding snap parliamentary elections, if even the Inquiry Committee would not manage to completely end the activities, then the relevant Inquiry Committee of the next parliament could use the work done. “The information will be archived and transferred to the next parliament,” Khachatryan noted. According to him, they will work to have results until the end of the possible term.

Ararat Mirzoyan proposed to sum up the work done and issue as a conclusion.

The draft laws on Making Amendments and Addenda to the RA Law on Public Bargaining authored by the NA deputies Artak Manukyan and Hayk Gevorgyan and on Making Amendments and Addenda to the RA Law on Petitions presented by the Government, the law on Amending the law on Attraction of Bank Deposits and the legislative package designing in the enclosed other laws authored by the deputies Artak Manukyan and Babken Tunyan were debated in the second reading.