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On December 9, in the Armenia Marriott Hotel the RA NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs and the OSCE Office in Yerevan jointly with the participation of the extra-parliamentary parties organized parliamentary hearings to discuss the Constitutional Law on Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly.

Welcoming the participants of the hearings, the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs Hovhannes Sahakyan noted that the event was organized jointly with the OSCE Office in Yerevan and thanked the Office for permanently supporting the Committee.

Hovhannes Sahakyan has presented the procedure of the elaboration of the NA Rules of Procedure, the activities of the working group, noting that the Rules of Procedure has been worked out on the basis of the provisions of the new Constitution and completely differs from the existing law. Mr Sahakyan talked about the role of the parliament as a representation body after turning into parliamentary government system. He underlined that the National Assembly will elect a number of high ranking officials, and the provisions of their appointment will be established by the Rules of Procedure law. The Committee Chair noted that in the elaboration phase of the draft law the working group studied the experience of different countries, cooperated with the OSCE Office in Yerevan in different formats, in order to use the international experience and realize the provisions of the Constitution.

By Mr Sahakyan’s characterization, the oversight and functioning mechanism of the draft constitutional law on Rules of Procedure give an opportunity for the full implementation of the parliamentary control, including the implementation of the control by the opposition. He documented that while submitting it for the second reading it will be possible to have more debated and documented draft constitutional law.

OSCE/ODIHR expert, Professor St John Bates (Great Britain) presented the experience of a number of European countries in organizing the legislative work, analyzed some provisions of the draft constitutional law and submitted his viewpoint on them. He particularly touched upon the procedures of making legislative amendments, the provisions defining the order of the initiatives’ debated in the Standing Committees, the rights of the bill author, the quickened procedures of the draft law adoption, the legal status of the constitutional law on NA Rules of Procedure and other problems. Mr Bates opined that the law NA Rules of Procedure should be easy for use. The Professor emphasized the amendments under recommendation by the draft law and highly assessed the authorities given to the opposition and the provisions concerning the rights.

In their speeches and interpellations the representatives of the extra-parliamentary parties talked about the political and legislative functions of the parliament, the authorities given to the parliamentary opposition, the international experience of organizing public debates’ phase on the draft laws, the NA deputy’s dismissal from the faction or quitting from the faction and conditioned by that fact, the right or permission of leaving the mandate, the definition of the deputy’s rules of conduct, the activities of the investigating committees, the creation of the sub-committees and other provisions. The Committee Chair Hovhannes Sahakyan and the OSCE/ODIHR expert, Professor St John Bates gave exhaustive answers to all questions and presented the regulations under proposal by the draft law and the international experience of the sphere.

In his final speech Hovhannes Sahakyan considered effective the regular debate on the draft law and urged the participants to submit recommendations, which will be debated in the Committee and in case of being admissible will be taken into consideration.