State of Emergency May Be Extended by 30 Days: 'Zhoghovurd'

‘Zhoghovurd’ newspaper writes: ‘Although Armenia's Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Staff Tigran Avinyan did not rule out on Public Television that the state of emergency could end earlier than expected on April 14, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan expressed a slightly different opinion yesterday.

Specifically, during a meeting of the commission coordinating efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Pashinyan announced that the situation regarding the coronavirus could last much longer than initially expected or predicted.

‘In this regard, we need to form certain ideas about how we will organize life in our republic. The overall logic and strategy should be as follows: under the conditions of limiting the spread of the coronavirus, we must find and establish, so to speak, free and safe areas where we can organize our lives under relatively safe conditions, while of course also keeping an eye on developments,’ said Pashinyan.

The Prime Minister's statement can be interpreted in two ways: it may either relate simply to the coronavirus situation or specifically to the state of emergency.

In any case, Article 5 of the 'Law on the Legal Regime of the State of Emergency' stipulates how long a state of emergency may last. ‘The duration of the state of emergency declared throughout the territory of the Republic of Armenia cannot exceed 30 days, and in certain areas, it may last up to 60 days,’ the article states. Meanwhile, if the circumstances that were the basis for declaring a state of emergency have not been removed during the specified periods, the state of emergency may be extended by presidential decree, in accordance with the procedures established for declaring a state of emergency by this law and for periods not exceeding the terms specified in part 1 of this article. This means that the duration may be extended again for another 30 days after the initial state of emergency ends.’

For more details, see today’s edition of the newspaper.