On April 20, the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh convened a regular sitting of the 5^th session.

Opening the sitting, the President of the Parliament Ashot Ghoulyan mentioned that the National Assembly will start working on bringing the current legislature into compliance with the Constitution in the near future and such initiative will be included in the agenda of the session soon.

Concerning the legislative work, the Parliament considered and adopted the “NKR Law on the Amendments to the “Law on the NKR State Budget for 2017”, according to which it is planned to increase the budgetary revenues of the section "Tax Revenues and State Duties" envisaged in the “NKR State Budget for 2017” by 450 million drams. According to the same law, the capital investment program envisaged in the “NKR State Budget for 2017” also will be increased by 450 million drams.

In the second reading, the “Law on the Amendments and Additions to the “NKR Law on Military Duty” submitted by the deputy initiative was adopted.

In the second part of the sitting, the Annual Report of the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Artsakh and the Activity Report for 2016 of the “Eastern Service of Seismic Protection” SNCO were presented to the Deputies.

Referring to the activities of the Office of the Human Rights Defender for 2016, Ruben Melikyan noted that 114 applications by 115 citizens were submitted, which in terms of indicators is almost the same relative to 2015.

The Executive Director of the “Eastern Service of Seismic Protection” SNCO Mkhitar Grigoryan presented the scientific and practical results of their work and expressed concerns over the lack of the demanded professionals.

The reporters responded to the Deputies’ questions and gave their opinion on the proposals.

The Deputy Hayk Khanumyan made statement.

After the break, according to the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, the legislative-executive questions-answers procedure was held.

The members of the Government headed by the Prime-minister Arayik Harutyunyan responded to the questions of the Deputies on the construction of Berdzor hospital, food safety in schools, coordinating the process of providing villagers with medicines, the feasibility of implementing health insurance, the procedure for granting rents to a certain category of servicemen and other topics.