Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

The RA Prime Minister’s Staff developed and put for public discussion the draft law on “Making addenda to the Labor Code of the Republic of Armenia”, whereby it is proposed to introduce an electronic system of registering employment contracts.

Article 2 of the draft proposes to add chapter 13.1 and Article 102.1 to the RA Labor Code. According to part 2 of the mentioned Article, “the main principles of using the electronic platform are as follows: access, for persons authorized to use the electronic platform in a manner prescribed by this Code, of the data on the electronic platform and the information they can possess in the scope of their authorities, at any time. Part 4 of the same Article establishes that “according to the decision of the Government of the Republic of Armenia, other authorities can have access to the data of the electronic data to the extent that is necessary for the implementation of their powers established by law”,  while according to part 13 of the same Article, “the list of bodies who have access to the data of the electronic platform is established by the Government of the Republic of Armenia”. 

This means that in addition to the RA Health and Labor Inspection Body, other state bodies can have access to the employee’s data in the platform at any time. Moreover, the draft does not specify what state bodies can have access, and what volume of information can be accessible and with that purposes. Noteworthy, while clause 3 of part 2 of Article 102.1 of the draft establishes that the procedure of using the electronic platform shall be established by the Code, the study of the draft shows that this function is assigned to the RA Government.

In the frame of EU-funded Decent Work Now project, HCA Vanadzor presented a position that the proposed regulation is problematic in the context of the principle of proportionality and does not go in line with the principles of predictability of the law and legal certainty. The principles of general equality before the law and prohibition of discrimination, as well as the principle of equal rights and opportunities of employees as established under Article 3 of the RA Labor Code are undermined. The proposed regulation does not ensure the principle of the rule of law, since the same rights and freedoms are not ensured, without discrimination, for employees in the same legal status.

Based on the aforementioned, we recommend removing part 7 from Article 102.1 of the draft.

More details are available here.

This publication was prepared with the financial support of the European Union. Responsibility for the contents of the publication lies with Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.