The United Armenian Council of Ontario, Canada welcomes and supports the HayaKve legislative initiative. The council issued a statement in this regard.

HayaKve is a civil-legislative initiative that proposes to criminalize any act, on behalf of Armenia, recognizing Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) as part of another country.

There is one more point in the draft: the criminalization of actions that belittle the significance of the Armenian Genocide.

Steps

1) A signature campaign is launched, provided by Armenia’s Constitution and the Law on Referendum.

The Central Electoral Commission of Armenia specifies a 60-day period for conducting the signature campaign.

1) When 50,000 signatures are collected, the bill shall be put on the agenda of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia and be put to a vote.

2) If the NA ignores the will of the people and rejects the draft, another 300,000 signatures shall be collected and this draft will be put to a referendum.

If enough votes are received in the referendum, the draft is immediately publicized and becomes a law.

It can be changed later only by referendum.