On 5 December, 2019 during a sitting, the RA Government approved the Draft Law of the RA on Amendments to the “Law of the Republic of Armenia on Non-Governmental Organizations” (hereinafter: Draft Law) was submitted by the State Revenue Committee (SRC) which we can consider as a good example of state-civil society partnership and cooperation.
We would like to inform that the Draft Law has been developed by the Working Group on “the Issues of Transparency and Accountability Provision of NGOs and Foundations”. The working group has been established under the No. 93-A Decree, dated on February 14 2019, signed by the SRC President and under the Decree the agreements reached through the constructive dialogue with the SRC are being implemented.
Below is a brief overview of the main stages of this process:
- On 13 November 2018, within the framework of the EU-funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project the ALA, in partnership with number of 102 non-governmental organizations and foundations, presented an application-opinion to the SRC President on the “Drafts of amendments and supplements to the Laws on Non-Governmental Organizations and Funds” developed by the SRC.
- On 23 November 2018, the SRC initiated a meeting to discuss the above-mentioned Drafts with NGO representatives. During the meeting the Project Manager of the EU-funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project and the President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, Mr. Karen Zadoyan proposed to the SRC to establish a CSO-SRC working group on NGOs’ and foundations’ transparency and accountability insurance, as well as to discuss and find legal solutions for number of issues in the draft laws. This received a positive feedback and agreement was reached to realize this suggestion.
- On 14 February 2019, the SRC’s President signed N 93-A Decree on the establishment of a Working Group consisted of 16 members representing civil society organizations (9 out of 16), the SRC, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Justice. The working group also included two representatives of the ALA and one representative of each partner NGOs (the number of partner NGOs: 4) that signed the above-mentioned application-opinion.
- On 15 February 2019, the SRC President signed N 102-N Decree on the “Approval of the due form of report on the activities of NGOs, completion and publishing procedures of the report and submission to the SRC, as well as declaring null and void the Decree N 59-N dated to February 13 2018, signed by the SRC President. It should be reminded that by null and void Decree of the SRC President, the NGOs, which had used public funds/means, were obliged with an illegal duty to represent a report on the use of non-public funds as well, whereas the new Decree fully complies with the Republic of Armenia Law on “Non-Governmental Organizations”.
- On February 26 2019, the first working group meeting was held in the SRC. As a result of the meeting decision was made that within a week the CSOs should present recommendations to improve the existing regulations of the RA Law on “Non-Governmental Organizations”. This provided an additional opportunity to discuss the legal gaps and disputes in the regulations on NGOs in general. The first meeting of the Working group was followed by three more meetings.
- On 30 August 2019, on the unified website for draft legal acts’ publication-
e-draft.am the SRC submitted the revised version of the Draft for public discussion which mainly was consisted of the ALA’s recommendations discussed at the meeting of the Working Group and approved by the majority of participants on 17 June 2019.
