YEREVAN. – After discussions with my colleagues, I decided to make considerable changes to the law initiative on defamation and insult. The person behind of this initiative, National Assembly (NA) vice speaker Alen Simonyan—a member of the majority My Step faction, said this at Wednesday’s meeting of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs, and during the discussion—in the second and final reading—of the bill on making amendments in the Civil Code of Armenia.

In particular, the amount of compensation for defamation and insult on social media and by the media has increased to up to 3 million drams instead of the previously proposed 1 million to 5 million drams. And in the case of defamation, the amount of compensation will reach up to 6 million drams instead of the previously proposed 2 million to 10 million drams.

After quite long discussions, the aforesaid committee approved this law initiative.