This week marks the 100th day of RA President Vahagn Khachaturyan's office holding. In this connection, the host of Public TV Petros Ghazaryan had an interview with the President of the Republic of Armenia. Among a number of issues, RA President referred to the fact that he had signed the controversial law "On Making Amendments to Mining Code." He, in particular, said,
"Recently, the amendment to Law on Mining drew much attention and NGOs applied to me in this regard. We had discussions with Babken Tunyan, Deputy Chairman of National Assembly Committee and Mr. Harutyunyan Deputy Minister of Government, and I listened to the views.
I realized that in fact everything was done, the public sector or non-governmental representatives were granted the opportunity to express their views. Combining all that, we concluded that the law is not unconstitutional, the law considers all the opinions that were voiced before the adoption of the law. NGOs have some disagreements, but those disagreement are just their disagreements in their presentation. But there was no problem in regard to the law or the constitution."
It should be noted that no public hearings were organized on draft law "On Amendments to Mining Code" in accordance with the accepted procedure. The bill posted on the joint platform for the publication of draft legal acts did not contain the controversial provisions for non-governmental organizations, which could also be discussed on that platform. The discussion of the draft law on Public TV is not a public hearing. Thus, the law was passed ignoring the application-letter of over forty non-governmental organizations.
According to Article 129 of RA Constitution, RA President applies to Constitutional Court within 21 days to determine the compliance of the law with the Constitution. If the Constitutional Court finds that the law complies with the Constitution, the President of the Republic shall sign and publish the law within five days.
June 23, 2022 at 16:38