YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 23, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA National Assembly regular four-day plenary session opened on February 23. 50 issues are on the agenda, including 6 international agreements submitted for ratification by the RA President. At the morning sitting the parliament in the first reading adopted the bill On State Courier Communication discussed at the previous four-day session. The 2009 annual plan of the RA Economic Competition State Commission was taken into consideration. The voting of the package of bills on making amendments and addenda to the law On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations and to the RA Criminal Code discussed in the first reading was postponed until the next four-day session at its authors' proposal. The delay is due to the necessity of revising the bills on the basis of proposals acceptable for the authors. As NT correspondent was informed by Armen Ashotian, the Chairman of the NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth Affairs, and Sport, many proposals were received at the NA plenary sitting, as well as during extra-parliamentary discussions. Among them the proposals on clarification of the notion "soul chasing" and on lowering the proposed minimum quantitative limit necessary for registration of religious organizations are mainly acceptable. In connection with the latter it was, in particular, mentioned that the amount 500 will be stipulated in the bill to be put to the vote in the first reading instead of the 1000 envisaged in the initial variant and current 200 stipulated by the law. According to A. Ashotian, the co-authors, in all probability, will decide to apply to the NA Speaker to send the bill for Venice Commission's expertise.

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