“If the “Author” of the draft law is the Government, it can in fact block all the changes suggested at the National Assembly which are not acceptable for it”, comments RA Member of Parliament Tevan Poghosyan on the assessments of OSCE/ODIHR on the Legislative Process in the Republic of Armenia.
According to him, the current situation is not conditioned by the Legislation. “First of all the role of the National Assembly is not limited, only in practice it becomes somehow meaningless. The Government is the ruling power, and it is dictating the law, the Government members initiate and write laws, and the majority in the National Assembly passes them. The share of the lion belongs to the Government”, stated our interlocutor also adding that this working style is characteristic to other countries as well. “While in more developed states there is also a debate, discussion in line with the contradiction. In our case the problem is different, as the law draft comes from the government, you understand that the majority won`t decline it”.
The experts who prepared the above-mentioned report, report that in general the MPs do not have special professional qualifications or preparation.
Tevan Poghosyan stated: “In my field I can work better than many representatives of Ministries. The MP cannot be expert in all fields. This is a matter of individual approach”, he concluded.
In this regard the legislator said that the staff of the MP is quite small. “Narrow circles do not support the MPs. The Government has a whole legislative apparatus, their draft laws are more literate, if we do not look into the footnotes. It would be better for every MP to have several assistants, including lawyers, economists or sociologists. While currently the MPs have just one assistants. Thus the MPs should be given the opportunity to form a team, and in this case I am sure that the problem of competition won`t be any more topical”, said Mr. Poghosyan.
