Lawmakers Propose Penalties for Insulting Individuals

Members of the "My Step" faction of the National Assembly of Armenia have presented a draft law proposing penalties for severely insulting an individual, whether through insults or other extreme forms of disrespect towards their dignity. According to a report by Armenpress, the legislative package concerning amendments to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia was introduced in a session of the National Assembly by co-author Vladimir Vardanyan.

He emphasized that it is necessary to differentiate between insults and extremely disrespectful attacks on an individual's dignity, referred to as insults. "Insults have existed in Armenian society, they exist now, and they will continue to be punishable. The real question is whether the state will leave the citizen alone in this issue or if it will define this behavior and its prohibition through law. The problem has become much more problematic given the possibilities of remotely causing insults," Vardanyan stated.

The proposal aims to supplement the Criminal Code with an article consisting of three parts. The legislator clarified that only under the third part, meaning in the presence of a qualified offense, is imprisonment foreseen as an extreme measure, while all other cases pertain exclusively to accountability through fines.

According to the co-author, the purpose of the draft is not so much to hold accountable those who have inflicted insult through derogatory remarks but to carry a preventive significance. It aims to eliminate insults from society as a phenomenon that severely undermines dignity.

The draft establishes under Article 137.1 of the Criminal Code that inflicting severe insult on an individual through insults or extreme forms of disrespect is punishable by a fine ranging from one hundred to five hundred times the minimum wage. The first part of this article prescribes that actions or dissemination of materials containing severe insults regarding a person, performed using information or communication technologies or in other public ways related to the individual's public activity, shall be punishable by a fine ranging from five hundred to one thousand times the minimum wage. Repeated actions against the same person as specified in the first or second parts of this article shall be punishable by a fine ranging from one thousand to three thousand times the minimum wage or imprisonment from one to three months.

The term of public activity is defined as behavior related to journalistic work, public service duties, holding public office, or engaging in public or political activity.

Nicola Baghdasaryan inquired what the author meant by insults. "In Acharian's dictionary, an insult is understood as the dissemination of any false information about a person. Now you are talking from the podium about sexual insults, about indecent insults," he said.

Vardanyan responded, "With all due respect to the dictionary and the great Acharian, I use that dictionary often; however, it is not a legislative act that we should follow. We must be guided by our legal acts and legal determinations developed by the judicial authority." The package of proposals was adopted in the first reading with 75 votes in favor.