1 / 12

At February 22 sitting of the NA Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs, one of the debated first legislative initiatives was about the functioning rates of the duty. The Government proposes to make amendments and addenda to the law on State Duty and to fix new rates against the lawsuits being presented to the courts, judicial acts of the Court for the appeal and cassation claims. The Deputy Minister of Justice Vahe Danielyan informed that the law had not undergone any change since 1999, meanwhile the social-economic indices had been changed in Armenia.

It has been proposed to increase the functioning rates of the duty up to four times, as well as to reconsider the rates of the applications being submitted to the Constitutional Court.

It is proposed to fix 3% instead of the former 2% for applying to the first instance Court with the demand of money. To submit a complaint to the Court of Civil Appeals, as a maximum rate had been fixed 15mln drams, and 10mln drams to the Court of Cassation. The maximum and the minimum rates of the state duty for the cases under examination in administrative procedure order had been fixed.

“There are a number of positive peculiarities in the package of the draft laws: the payment orders of the state duty on civil, administrative and bankruptcy cases have been separated,” the MP Sargis Khandanyan said. He also highlighted the forecast of the maximum thresholds.

The executive body expects to raise the efficiency of justice with amendments and addenda, and as a special goal the non-violation of the principle of accessibility of applying to the Court is emphasized.

Ani Samsonyan informed that the members of the NGO Protection of the Rights without Borders applied to the Committee, presenting their observations on the package under debate. They proposed to refuse from the amendments of the functioning rates of the state duty, noting that the citizens will appear in the unequal and unfavourable situation.

The addendum being designed to the law on Holidays and Memorial Days was debated in the second reading. Rustam Bakoyan proposed to celebrate the National Minorities Day the first Sunday of October instead of the last Saturday of September. “The substantiation is the following: the draft law was put into circulation before the Artsakh war, therefore after the war we could not leave it the last Saturday of September, as that day would be September 27 once in 7 years. September could not be simply celebrated as a holiday on September 27,” Bakoyan said.