New government body to guarantee higher level of information freedom in Armenia - official  

A deputy minister of justice on Thursday unveiled a plan for creating a new government body responsible for the protection of freedom of information.

The measure is intended to offer more effective guarantees for the implementation of the law “On Freedom of Information”, Suren Krmoyan said at a roundtable debate.

“The plan proposes creating such a body as a council adjunct to the Human Rights Defender’s Office. But the very idea of having yet another government body is not just an end in itself. If, as a result of discussions, [the plan] turns out unadvisable, the Ombudsman’s Office and the judiciary will be vested with the corresponding authority and responsibility,” the official explained. 

He added that the Ministry collaborated with the civil society in the past couple of years to elaborate the law which later turned out to have imperfections.  

“The major task is to ensure the exercise of the constitutionally established human right to receive information, and to make freedom of information a  tool of effective state governance which might as well serve for anti-corruption purposes. The more transparent the government and the local government bodies, the lower the corruption risks,” he added.

Krmoyan said their main target will be the unregulated relations linked to the information technologies’ development. In his words, the advanced IT industries necessitate further efforts to make the corresponding tools part and parcel of the legislation.

“We have incorporated the idea of a united electronic platform into our bill to enable individual citizens, organizations and government bodies to send requests and receive information,” he added.

The deputy minister also stressed the importance of further debates with the civil society.

The Government has given the Ministry of Justice two months for reconsidering the legislation.

“This law must be consensus-based, and cover the interests of all the sides concerned. So we are not going submit it to the National Assembly unless we reach such a consensus,” he added.