At the beginning of February, the Parliament put forward two worrying legislative initiatives concerning freedom of speech and in particular, mass media law.
On February 17, the Ministry of Justice published draft amendments to the Criminal Code. With the amendments the Ministry aims to provide “more effective criminal protection mechanisms for public servants in the performance of their official duties, protecting them from public insults and slander”.
According to the amendments, insulting or slandering a person in public service in connection with his / her performance of official duties shall be punished by a fine ranging from 100,000 (app. 157 EUR) to 500,000 AMD (app. 785 EUR). In addition, if the defamation or slander was committed through the mass media or other public channels, the punishment will be a fine from 500,000 (app. 785 EUR) to 3,000,000 AMD (app. 4700 EUR) or imprisonment for up to 2 years.
Media organisations issued a statement, mentioning that this initiative contradicts to the PACE Resolution 1577 and ECHR decisions. In their assessment, this step is a continuation of restrictive legislative initiatives taken by the government trying to repress freedom of expression.