A regular Cabinet meeting took place today, chaired by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.

The Government approved the bills on amendments to the Law "On State Non-Commercial Organizations" and amendments and supplements to related laws. The goals of adopting the bills are to increase transparency and accountability in the use of state property, ensure the flow of additional budget revenues, reduce corruption risks and opportunities for conflicts of interest, and ensure proper responsibility of state bodies for the preservation and use of property. Based on the adoption of amendments to legislative acts, appropriate regulations will also be established in the relevant sub-legislative legal acts on the lease and provision of gratuitous use of state-owned property. As a result, the process of leasing out properties owned by state bodies, including state non-profit organizations and closed joint-stock companies with 100 percent state participation, will be regulated, the goal of which is to increase the efficiency of using state property and identify unused areas.

The Government has approved the bill of the Republic of Armenia "On Amendments and Supplements to the Law on Military Service and the Status of a Serviceman". As noted by the Deputy Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia Hrachya Sargsyan, the bill envisages increasing the time of the main leave granted to private and junior non-commissioned officers in compulsory military service, and establishing additional leave for them in connection with taking the military oath. As well as replacing the current system of providing service housing for officers who have graduated from a military educational institution and have been appointed to officer positions in the system of the Ministry of Defense or the border troops of the National Security Service with the right to acquire residential real estate with mortgage loan in line with their needs, entirely at the expense of the state budget.

The bills of the Republic of Armenia "On Amendments and Supplements to the Family Code of the Republic of Armenia", "On the Rights of the Child and the System of Child Protection" and related laws were approved. In particular, the package of bills enshrines the provision on de facto guardian and trustee, which is a form of temporary alternative care aimed at preventing the child from being subjected to additional trauma in cases where there is a close relative who is willing to take care of the child in urgent cases when the child is left without parental care, but the formal process of organizing alternative care has not yet been implemented. The mandatory provision of the best interests of the child in matters concerning him or her, including in the case of adoption and foster care, has been enshrined, and its mechanisms have been envisaged. The powers of guardianship and trusteeship bodies in the child protection system - community leaders, territorial government bodies and the authorized body - and the child protection procedures have been clarified. It is envisaged to create multidisciplinary child protection councils to support the implementation of child protection functions by the regional governor's staff, and in Yerevan, by the Yerevan Municipality. The obligation to report violence or its risk has been established, which will allow for the establishment of further regulations.