1 / 1

“The purpose of the draft law is that the National Assembly (NA) will have the opportunity to elect before the end of the term of office of a member of an autonomous body, which will allow to ensure the permanent presence of all members of the body,” the Chairperson of the Competition Protection Commission Gegham Gevorgyan informed about it at the sitting of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs, presenting the draft of the Government on Making Amendments and Addenda to the Constitutional Law the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly.

According to the key rapporteur, there are cases when the posts of the members of the autonomous bodies are temporarily vacant, or after the expiration of the term of office, it takes some time before the election of a new member by the National Assembly, and due to insufficient number, the work of the body is disrupted.

Gegham Gevorgyan reminded that the NA solved that problem with the last amendments made to the Law on the Commission for the Protection of the Economic Competition. However, he also has noted that there are also some bodies where there are problems like that.

According to him, when such amendment was made to the Law on the Commission for the Protection of the Economic Competition, it was decided that such regulations should also be made by a comprehensive law the NA Rules of Procedure.

The Chair of the Standing Committee Vladimir Vardanyan noted that after the constitutional amendments, a model for the formation of autonomous bodies was chosen, in which case the elections of the given body should be held during the term of office of the member, so that it would be possible to fill that position with a new member immediately after the expiration of his/her term of office.

“The meaning of the amendment is that the autonomous bodies inform the National Assembly that the term of office of the Committee member expires after a certain period of time, and the National Assembly informs the relevant bodies that they should nominate within a certain period of time. The draft also proposes to remove the word “vacant” from a number of Articles, which will make both the Rules of Procedure and our actions more flexible,” the Committee Chair explained.

During the exchange of ideas, the deputy of the Armenia Faction Aram Vardevanyan has said that the NA Rules of Procedure is constitutional, and it should not be overloaded with the regulations of sectoral laws.

“The draft itself will not cause a problem by this logic either,” the deputy said.

As a result of debate, the Committee members endorsed the bill.