NSS proposal envisages amendments to Armenian legislation on classified information

The National Security Service has put up for discussion a new draft law on the joint website for publishing draft legal acts, which proposes to update the Law on State and Official Secret. This law regulates the relations related to the processes of classifying, protecting, declassifying or destroying information as state secret in order to ensure the security of the Republic of Armenia.

The law defines the concept of information containing state secrets, the degree of secrecy, as well as the powers of individuals,  state, local self-government bodies, organizations, legal entities, institutions, individuals, persons authorized to have access to confidential information, the conditions for their work, restrictions, as well as relationships with limited information service.

According to the substantiation, the current law needs to be completely reformed and improved from the substantive and legislative point of view. It was adopted in 1996. It is noted that the current law does not fully stipulate the scope of the Government’s powers to classify information as state secrets, does not define the main concepts used in the law, does not specify the terms of review of confidential information, declassification of confidential information, as well as a number of other regulations.