YEREVAN. - The Armenian parliament demands too wide powers.

Justice Minister of Armenia Arpine Hovhannisyan stated the aforementioned at the Cabinet session on Thursday, presenting the conclusion on the new edition of the constitutional law entitled “Regulation of the National Assembly (NA).”

The bill was drawn out by three deputies from the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and ARF Dashnaktsutyun factions, Vahram Baghdasaryan and Armen Rustamyan, as well as RPA deputy Hovhannes Sahakyan, who is also the Chairman of the parliamentary Committee on State and Legal Affairs.

According to Hovhannisyan, the parliament required the opportunity to control the actions envisaged by the Government Program, as well as check the legal conformity of legal acts (Constitution and laws) of the executive branch. Even the states with entirely parliamentary system of governance don’t have such wide powers. “This will impede the balance between the branches of the government and reduce the Government functions. The deputies’ demand to adopt the Government bills without conforming them with the texts is unacceptable—except for the annual draft State Budget and a number of other important laws,” Hovhannisyan noted.

In response, Chief of the NA Staff, Hrayr Tovmayan, noted that under the previous edition of the Constitution, the Government could indeed demand that its bills be adopted only in an agreed version. Now this requirement has remained in regard to only five important laws. “There is no such requirement with respect to the rest of the laws. And now the main responsibility for the bill will be carried out by specialist parliamentary committees,” Tovmasyan noted.

Minister - Chief of Armenian Government Staff, Davit Harutyunyan, for his part, noted that currently the executive branch cannot indeed insist on its version of the bill texts and that their final fate should be decided not by specialist committees, but the entire parliament at a plenary session.