RA Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a statement, which says:
"On June 12, 2024, the RA National Assembly adopted the first reading of the Law on Amendments to the Law on Police" and the package of drafts of related laws, which proposed to provide a safer environment in our country with the help of various business entities.
As we have mentioned many times, the purpose of project development is exclusively to fully utilize the possibilities of modern technological developments in facing the modern challenges of public safety and, as a result, to significantly improve the public safety environment.
During the development of projects, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Armenia carried out a comprehensive study and analysis of the leading international experience of the field, discussed and proposed solutions to all possible issues ensuring the integrity of the regulations, including the constitutional guarantees of the protection of basic human rights and freedoms.
In the context of the latter, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the inviolability of a person's private and family life has also become an object of study.
It is recorded that the implementation of video surveillance in public places and the acquisition of corresponding publicly available data do not constitute a disproportionate interference with the privacy of a person's private and family life, if it is provided by law, pursues a legitimate goal and is necessary and proportionate to achieve that goal.
The RA Ministry of Internal Affairs, realizing the importance and depth of the issue, considering the proper protection of the interests of all the beneficiaries of public security as key and the existence of a mutually agreed position of all actors in this regard, has always expressed readiness to discuss any concern and address it.
The discussions of the projects show that although the guarantees are fixed in the legal dimension, the pursued goal is legitimate, but some concerns in the perceptions of different groups of the public are still not dispelled.
Considering that circumstance, emphasizing the need to form a common perception and a common action agenda in ensuring public security, the RA Ministry of Internal Affairs considers it expedient to refrain from presenting the drafts for a second reading without a broad public consensus.
This is also proof that the project presented by us has no context, it derives exclusively from public interest. However, if the public, the protection of whose interests this project was aimed at, does not have a broad consensus on this initiative aimed at its own security, then the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Armenia freezes the further course of the project under such conditions, with a great willingness to invite the interested bodies to the discussion table again.
At the same time, not deviating from the goal and agenda of improving the public safety environment, the option of a step-by-step solution to the problem is currently being discussed with a separate initiative. In particular, it is planned to make the approach of providing access to the RA Ministry of Internal Affairs to the video surveillance systems of state and local self-government bodies a subject of discussion at the first stage.
