When convening a meeting of a supreme body of a non-governmental organization in order to make changes to the charter of the NGO or to take other decisions, the main law demands: “According to the new NGO Law, the required quorum shall be more than half the total number of members of the organization or delegates. In addition, the law provides the procedure of decision making in the Charter. In the past the changes in the Charter were made by the 2/3 of the members.” President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association Mr. Karen Zadoyan, “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project Manager said at the training organized for the NGՕs of Armavir marz today.
According to Mr. Zadoyan, the Charter of the organization may also provide participation of all its members or proportionally elected delegates to the Assembly in accordance with the procedure established by the Charter; the ways and terms of informing the participants about the agenda of the meeting, the place and time of convening the meeting; as well as the maximum quantitative or qualitative requirements to the members; other provisions not contravening the law relating to the organization of activities.
Under the new law, organizations are able to engage in direct entrepreneurial activities. Before that, NGOs were implementing such activities only by establishing or participating in a commercial organization. “From now on, the organization has the right to carry out entrepreneurial activity in accordance with its objectives provided for in its Charter and dispose its property and the outputs of such activities for that purpose; as well as establish a commercial organization or become its participant in the manner provided by law,” Mr. Zadoyan said.
Accountability requirements have also changed, “The organization maintains separate accounting of entrepreneurial activities, including information on its involvement in statutory reports. Profit earned as a result of an entrepreneurial activities are used only for statutory purposes of the organization,” Mr. Zadoyan said.
Apart from positive solutions, the law also contains a number of problems, Mr. Zadoyan said that the process of conducting entrepreneurial activity, the areas of VAT, profit tax and other issues are problematic.
Today, in addition to the training, the Project Manager provided individual legal consultations to the NGO representatives answering the questions of their concern.
This was a good opportunity to get acquainted with the legislative changes for non-governmental organizations that attended the training. “It was very important because I was trying to understand what these changes were and what to do. I tried to find out the explanation from different places but did not get an exhaustive answer. Today I have received really exhaustive answers,” Ms Knarik Garanfilyan, President of “Family and Community” NGO said.
The event in Armavir was organized with the support of the partner of Armenian Lawyers’ Association “Armavir Development Center” NGO, which provided its office space for the event.
The “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project is implemented with the financial support of the European Union by the “Armenian Lawyers’ Association” NGO in cooperation with its partners; Agora Central Europe o.p.s (an NGO from the Czech Republic), Armenian Center for Democratic Education-CIVITAS, “International Center for Human Development” Public Organization, SME Cooperation Association and Union of Communities of Armenia.
Gevorg Tosunyan
Aleksander Sargsyan
