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The draft proposes to establish longer retention periods for the protection of special important and top secret information containing state secrets. In particular, instead of the current 30 years, it is proposed to set the retention period of special important information containing state secrets to 40 years. It is proposed to set the retention period of top secret information to 30 years instead of the existing 10 years. The Deputy Director of the RA National Security Service Tigran Harutyunyan said this while presenting the package of drafts of the law on State Secrets and related laws for debate in the second reading.

The draft of the presented laws proposes to solve the legal problems that have arisen in the field over the years, to eliminate legislative gaps, to provide more clear regulations for the circulation of information constituting state secrets, and at the same time to review the measures and dimensions of liability provided by law for publishing information containing state secrets.

According to the National Security Service Deputy Director, the draft was revised based on a number of proposals made by the deputies of the Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs, received from the Security Council and acceptable to the Government.

Tigran Harutyunyan mentioned that the notions of state secret and information containing state secret were edited in the draft law, and the notion of limited distribution service information was clarified. It was noted that the draft law was supplemented with the principle of encryption symmetry, while defining the content of that principle, the provisions on temporary restrictions of rights were revised, envisaging smoother regulations. He mentioned that the other amendments made in the draft law are of editorial character.

Article 3 of the draft law on Amendments and Addenda to the RA Code of Administrative Offenses included in the package of the draft law was written in a new edition.

Tigran Harutyunyan informed that the legislative package was completed with a new draft on Amendments to the Law on Regulation of Arms Circulation in order to remove the provisions from the law regarding the official secrecy.

The RA National Security Service Deputy Director noted that the amendments in other related drafts included in the package of the draft law under debate are of editorial character.

The co-rapporteur, the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs Vladimir Vardanyan, highlighting the draft law, noted that the presented proposals were acceptable to all parties. According to him, the provisions have been improved, which will allow to have more effective mechanisms regarding the maintenance of state secrets in the future. The Committee Chair emphasized that an adoption process of quite a large number of normative sub-legislative acts is planned for the implementation of the law. He expressed hope that the process will end successfully and the complete package will be visible in the implementation.

The NA deputy of Armenia Faction Artsvik Minasyan, in his speech highlighting the role and importance of protection of state secrets in the development of our independent statehood, mentioned that the presented draft law does not provide institutional solutions. He informed that their faction will vote against the draft law and will express a special opinion.

The Committee endorsed the draft law.

The sitting took place on February 27.