YEREVAN. – Representatives of “I am against” (Dem em) civil initiative will work with four parliamentary parties to introduce amendments to Armenia's new law on pensions, activists said during a press conference on Saturday.

“We will not cooperate, but work on amending the law,” Arsen Manukyan said.

Four parliamentary forces – Prosperous Armenia, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Armenian National Congress and Heritage – said they would convene a special session of the parliament to debate pension law.

However, taking to Armenian News-NEWS.am, member of “I am against” movement Gevorg Gorgisyan said there is no need to hold a special session.

“There is a week left. I do not think a special session will be held as on April 28 PM Hovik Abrahamyan will submit a bill on pensions to the parliament,” Gorgisyan said. 

On April 2, the Constitutional Court (CC) of Armenia declared unconstitutional a whole series of articles in the new Law on Funded Pensions. Despite this ruling, however, the state-run financial institutions still oblige the employers to make mandatory funded pension cuts from the salaries of their employees. The respective reasoning is that the CC gave the parliament and the government until September 30 to amend the aforesaid law’s provisions that were deemed unconstitutional.