Article 1. Part 1 of Article 12 of the Constitutional Law of the Republic of Armenia “Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly” of December 16, 2016, LA-9-N (hereinafter, Law) shall be supplemented with paragraph 7 as follows:

 “7) shall consider the petitions sent by the Chairperson of the National Assembly to the committee and shall respond to them.”.

 Article 2. The law shall be supplemented by Article 123.1 as follows:

 “Article 123.1. Procedure for Debating and Responding to Petitions Submitted to the National Assembly

1. Petitions may be submitted to the National Assembly only on issues within the competence of the National Assembly.

2. A petition shall be submitted by an official letter, addressed to the Chairperson of the National Assembly. If the official letter:

1) does not correspond with the prescribed requirements of part 1 of this Article or the Law of the Republic of Armenia "On Petitions" or within five working days is not brought into correspondence with them then the Staff shall return the official letter indicating the reasons, and in case of existence of grounds for refusal established by the Law of the Republic of Armenia "On Petitions," the Staff shall reject the debate of the petition;

2) corresponds with the prescribed requirements of part 1 of this Article or the Law of the Republic of Armenia "On Petitions" then the Chairperson of the National Assembly shall send the petition to the competent Standing Committee or committees if the petition relates to areas under the jurisdiction of more than one Standing Committee.

3. The Staff shall register the petition which was sent to the Standing Committee and shall post it to the official website of the National Assembly.

4. Within three working days after receipt of the petition, the Chair of the Standing Committee shall send the petition to the members of the committee, who may submit a draft response to the petition within a two-week period after the receipt of the petition. If a draft response to the petition is not submitted within an established timeframe, then the draft response to the petition shall be elaborated within a week and shall be submitted to the debate of the committee by the chair of the committee. The Committee Chair may also elaborate a draft response to a petition if another member of the committee has submitted a draft response to a petition.

5. At a sitting of the committee, the draft response to the petition shall be debated in a general procedure. If more than one draft has been submitted, then they shall be debated in accordance with part 2 of Article 112 of the Rules of Procedure. If the Committee does not make a decision regarding the response to the petition, then the debate of the issue shall be considered concluded.

6. The Chair of the Committee, the response to the petition approved by the decision of the Committee, and in case of failure of a decision regarding the response, the corresponding official letter shall be sent to the Staff within two working days. After receiving it, the Staff, within three working days, shall send it to the person who presented the individual petition or the responsible person mentioned in the collective petition. The response to the petition shall be posted on the official website of the National Assembly.

7. The decisions or other activities (or inaction) of the Chairperson of the National Assembly, the Standing Committees regarding the petitions, as well as decisions or other activities (or inaction) of the Staff regarding the return or the refusal of the debate of the petition shall not be subject to appeal. 

Article 3. This Law shall enter into force on the day after its official promulgation.