YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan)–The National Assembly Wednesday discussed a bill “on amending parliament regulations.”
The amendment was approved by 81 affirmative votes–with 32 opponents and 26 abstentions.
The authors of the bill are deputies David Shahnazarian–Aramazd Zakarian and members of the Republic faction Petros Makeyan and Hovhannes Tokmajian. According to David Shahnazarian–the experience of the past two years has shown that the Parliament’s regulations are not perfect. The proposed changes are far from being final as well.
The amendmen’s and additions give deputies a chance to make 3-minute statemen’s at sessions–bans voting on bills at closed sessions and prohibits to arrest or search deputies unless these actions are coordinated with Parliament leadership.
The bill particularly enables deputies to change factions. It also concerns the terms of establishment of deputy groups. Now as few as 10 deputies can form a deputy group.
Deputies of a party included in an election bloc can leave the factions and found a deputy group with the same name.
The main opponents spoke against giving deputies free mandates and decreasing the number of members in deputy groups from 15 to 10.
