Starting July 1, 2022, a new Criminal Code will enter into force in Armenia. The Minister of Justice Karen Andreasyan announced that the new Code will not include the provision on liability for grave insult, which was adopted last year.
According to Andreasyan, this decision was made as a result of inter-agency consultations led by the Prime Minister. The sanctions for grave insult from now on will be regulated only by the civic legislation, which applies a fine. “In our agenda of further democratisation, even the legitimate restriction of freedom of speech should be implemented without the tools of criminal prosecution to the possible extent. The executive did not find it expedient to cover grave insult in the new Criminal Code, preferring the existing civil liability regulations”, he mentions in his Facebook status.
Criminal sanctions adopted for grave insult in 2021
The amendments to the RA Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code setting sanctions for grave insult (including swearing or insulting person’s dignity in another extremely indecent manner) were proposed in 2021 by the members of the previous parliament. This bill was not publicly consulted in any way, and was included in the extraordinary session of the last working day of the 7th convocation of the parliament and approved in two readings immediately. The sanctions set for the grave insult included a fine starting from 100,000 AMD (170 EUR at that time) up to 3 million AMD (5100 EUR at that time) or detention from 1 to 3 months in case of aggravating circumstances (i.e. committed through ICT or in another public way, or committed due to the public activity of the person, as well as committed against the same person on a regular basis).
According to Andreasyan, the criminal liability was introduced last year “to stop the shameful, unacceptable behavior of certain groups and individuals in the context of the polarization of society.” Even though hate speech and defamation has largely grown in recent years, and has also targeted CSOs and activists (see more details in the CSO Meter Report 2021 Armenia), the media community found the abovementioned amendments, along with other initiatives addressing defamation and disinformation, as disproportionate and restricting freedom of expression.
The Human Rights Defender of Armenia applied to the Constitutional Court to suspend the new provision and decide on its constitutionality. However, the Court found the provision constitutional.
Criticism from international organisations and civil society
International organisations have also criticised the amendments even though Armenia had been facing an unprecedented level of disinformation and hate speech. For example, in its resolution on the functioning of democratic institutions in Armenia, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called on the authorities to (1) ensure that the balance between the freedom of expression and the dignity of the person is respected, (2) ensure that the legislation on penalties for insult and defamation is applied uniformly and not used in an arbitrary manner against individuals and the media, as well as (3) develop tools other than preventive punishment to combat disinformation and hate speech. In the Freedom in the World 2022 Armenia report, Freedom House mentioned that the relevant amendments “raised concerns that the law can easily be abused to curtail free expression and to direct political pressure against media organizations that criticise politicians”.
CSOs find that the pressure by the civil society and international organisations played a key role in the recent decision of the government to repeal this provision from the new Criminal Code. It is expected that the new Code will have retroactive effect for the current court cases. Over 800 criminal proceedings, initiated on the basis of this article, will be stopped, while the possibility of compensation for the court verdicts already issued in 6 cases is currently under discussion.
Tackling hate speech while protecting freedom of expression
In his status, Andreasyan also mentioned that following its commitment to protect freedom of expression, the government intends to take legislative measures in line with international best practices to protect the dignity of individuals, privacy, national security and other vital values from the abuse of the freedom of expression. In April 2022, the Ministry of Justice signed a memorandum with a number of prominent media organisations and the relevant standing committee of the parliament to develop legislative solutions tackling hate speech, violence propaganda, disinformation, as well as to improve the media space based on the current challenges, new telecommunication technologies, and international norms.
If implemented, this will be a positive step in the improvement of CSO environment, as addressing hate speech and disinformation with respect to international standards has been outlined among the CSO environment priorities in the recent CSO Meter report for Armenia.