News - HayaKve bill hearing kicks off in Armenia parliament

The hearing on the HayaKve bill, organized by the opposition "Armenia" bloc, started Friday in the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia. HayaKve is a civil-legislative initiative that proposes to criminalize any action on behalf of Armenia that recognizes Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) as part of another country. For this purpose, the HayaKve initiative collected 50,000 signatures and submitted it to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Armenia. There is one more point in this law proposal: the criminalization of actions that belittle the significance of the Armenian Genocide. Steps: 1) A signature campaign is launched in accordance with Armenia’s constitution and the Law on Referendum. The CEC Armenia defines the 60-day period for conducting the signature campaign. 1) When 50,000 signatures are collected, the bill must be put on the NA agenda and be put to a vote. 2) If NA ignores the will of the people and rejects the draft, another 300,000 signatures will be collected, and this draft will be put to a referendum. If sufficient votes are received in the referendum, the draft is immediately publicized and becomes a law. Later it can only be amended by referendum.