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At February 3 regular sitting, the NA Standing Committee on Defense and Security in the first reading debated the draft law on Amending the RA Code on Administrative Offences authored by the NA Armenia Faction.

According to the key rapporteur Aram Vardevanyan, it is proposed to recognize invalid the provisions of the RA Code on Administrative Offences, by which penalty score, as well as suspension of the right to driving transport means is applied towards the persons, who have violated the road traffic rules. “After the introduction of the penalty score system, only in 2021, more than 170.000 decisions were made, suspension of about 5000 driver’s license was carried out,” he said, adding that, according to statistical data, the introduction of penalty scores or score system has not changed the picture of the road traffic accidents at all, the death cases conditioned by the road traffic accidents have not reduced.

Therefore, the punishment system designed for the same deed shall be eliminated.

Most of the Committee members have been against it, considering that the citizen is not subjected to double responsibility. In the opinion of the Committee Chair Andranik Kocharyan, the score system is a serious straitjacket of responsibility for the drivers, hence it shall remain.

The co-rapporteur Armen Khachatryan has noted that score system is used in 21 countries, and it does not oppose the RA Constitution, as the author of the initiative thinks.

According to him, the drivers who have no problem of paying penalty in thousands of drams, complain against this system. The problem is their driver’s license is put under danger. “The people, who regularly break the law, appear in the target of this law,” the deputy underlined.

The non-reducing number of the death cases because of road traffic accidents is also connected with the pedestrians, as most of them cross the street in unacceptable places.

The Head of the Legal Department of the RA Police Ruslan Marandyan has noted that the penalty score can be a main one, as well as additional and combining with the penalty, can become an additional one.

In his turn he presented some statistical data, according to which, the score system has a positive influence on decreasing the traffic accidents.

The Committee did not endorse the draft law.