Parliamentary committee approves amendments reducing maximum fines for insult, defamation

YEREVAN, MARCH 17, ARMENPRESS. A parliamentary committee approved Vice Speaker Alen Simonyan’s (ruling My Step bloc) amendments on decreasing the heavy fines for public defamation and insults envisaged by his relevant bill which had already passed first reading in parliament.

Simonyan’s original bill envisaged up to 5,000,000 drams and up to 10,000,000 drams for anyone convicted of insults and defamation respectively.

But now, Simonyan decreased the maximum fines to 3,000,000 drams and 6,000,000 drams for the second reading. He said the change is made as a result of discussions with colleagues.

But the Deputy Minister of Justice Vahe Danielyan sought to decrease the amount of the fines even lower. He cited several judgments of the ECHR, which note that heavy sanctions inadvertently lead to the public or journalists in particular not discussing certain issues of interest. Simonyan, however, rejected the government’s proposal and his amendments were approved by the committee.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan