The Armenian Parliament has rejected a controversial draft law proposing to significantly reduce military service in exchange for payments reaching $62,000.
The bill was proposed in mid-May by Hayk Sargsyan, an MP from the ruling Civil Contract party.
Despite being largely criticised among society and human rights advocates, the amended version of the bill was approved by the Armenian Government on 22 May.
It envisaged further increasing the fees than what was initially proposed by Sargsyan, offering the shortest service of one month for ֏24 million ($62,000), and 4 months for ֏18 million ($47,000), following which they would be included in the reserve force.
Armenia currently has compulsory two-year military service for men between the ages of 18–27.
Despite the government’s initial greenlighting of the proposal, parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence and Security did not endorse the bill on 13 June.
Five ruling party MPs on the committee voted in favour, four opposition MPs voted against, while the committee chair, Andranik Kocharyan, abstained.
According to the Armenian Parliament’s readout of the ensuing discussions surrounding the draft law, Kocharyan urged Sargsyan to withdraw the bill from circulation before the autumn session and recommended holding additional discussions, stating that the proposal was ‘problematic in a number of respects’. Sargsyan rejected the recommendation.
However on Tuesday, Sargsyan and 86 other MPs voted against including the bill in parliament’s agenda.
On behalf of the ruling Civil Contract party, its parliamentary leader Hayk Konjoryan stated that the faction had discussed the bill internally. While acknowledging that the draft contained army reform-oriented elements, which are among their priorities, he said the faction ultimately concluded that they ‘cannot accept it in this form’.
He suggested that the issues were connected to some regulations, wording, and the timing of the discussion without giving any detail.
In turn, Sargsyan noted that he began discussions on the bill with the government in January 2024, but did not have time to consult with all of his parliamentary colleagues about the draft.
‘With the prime minister’s instructions, I will continue working with our colleagues so that we can implement the reforms outlined in the government’s program and the guidelines that the prime minister has set before us as soon as possible’, Sargsyan said before noting that he would also vote against the draft law.
‘If parliament passes this law, it will not only codify class division, it will mark the end of civic equality as a guiding principle. But the backlash also shows that the public still remembers the promises of 2018. It is not too late to honour them’, Andranik Shirinyan, a human rights defender and policy expert from Armenia, wrote in his op-ed about the bill for OC Media.
Andranik Shirinyan
