Voting on State of Emergency bill delayed

Voting on State of Emergency bill delayed

PanARMENIAN.Net - Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Samvel Nikoyan did not offer the bill on Legal Regime of the State of Emergency for voting on March 20.

The voting was first postponed for 20 minutes upon request of the parliamentary group of the Republican Party of Armenia, then the ruling party doubted they can “pass” the bill, taking into account lack of the required number of MPs (74 MPs out of total 131 attended the session, with quorum making 66).

The speaker told the parliament that the voting can be organized at a more “appropriate moment”. This statement caused indignation among the parliamentary opposition which demanded that the bill is called back.

“The current situation demonstrates that RPA members understand this bill is unacceptable. If all of you know this, why do you want to have this bill passed by all means? The majority of the society disagrees with it, so just call it back,” Vahan Hovhannisyan, head of the parliamentary group of ARF Dashnaktsutyun said with regard to this.

The National Assembly of Armenia passed on March 1 the bill “On legal regime of the state of emergency” with 67 votes for and 1 against; opposition MPs boycotted the bill and did not vote at all.

The new draft law “On legal regime of the state of emergency” was adopted in the National Assembly of Armenia on February 9, 2012 in the first reading. Then Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan called the bill back for amendment.

The revised bill was submitted to the parliament again. Opposition believes this bill is unconstitutional since it gives the President personal authorities to declare a state of emergency (the president consults the prime minister and the speaker of the parliament but takes the decision independently), as well as envisages involvement of army to eliminate the threat that resulted in a state of emergency.

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