State duties for registration of marriage, issuing of statements of information on registration of civil status acts to be removed, the time periods for providing a number of services to be reduced

The Government is carrying out revolutionary reforms in the field of rendering public services. The legislative package approved by the Government today will ensure the digitisation of public services being provided by the Ministry of Justice, simplification of the administrative action, reduction of the time periods, improvement of the quality of services being rendered, and reduction of corruption risks.

"As a result of the adoption of the laws, we will remove state duties for registration of marriage, issuing of statements of information on registration of civil status acts, and record-registration of an individual entrepreneur in an online format; we will reduce the time period for issuing a statement of information for absence of marriage from 7 days to on the spot," Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan noted.

As a result of the reforms:

• the documents will be certified by Apostille by a single state body under a unified procedure, including in an electronic format, within one day instead of the current 2 or 3 days;
• the time periods for registration of the name change will be reduced — from 5 months to 15 days;
• the time period for making corrections, changes and additions, as well as restoration of the act will be reduced from 4 months to 15 working days;
• the time period fixed for correcting spelling mistakes will be reduced to 3 days;
• a new system for civil status acts registration agencies will be established in the front and back office format. That is to say, the applications will be accepted by the service centres, and the registrations will be made by the Ministry of Justice, preventing the contacts of the applicant and the decision makers;
• a procedure for submitting electronic applications will be established, as a result of which:
• rendering of civil status acts registration services will also be carried out via an online platform;
• electronic services of the Agency for State Register will be expanded;
• the time limit for registration of commercial organisations will be reduced to 1 working day (as a result Armenia can move from the 10th to 2nd rank on “Starting Business” sub-index of the “Doing Business” Report, and if online registrations make up the majority — even the 1st place);
• it will be possible to be record-registered as an individual entrepreneur through an authorised person;
• for the first time, consular offices outside the territory of the Republic of Armenia will be provided an opportunity to accept applications both from citizens of the Republic of Armenia and foreign nationals to establish a business in Armenia or to purchase a stake in an Armenian company, which may contribute to the process of attracting investments.

The amount of state duties for some services will also increase under the draft package:

• Registration of political parties will become AMD 50 000;
• re-organisation of the legal person will become AMD 50 000;
• state duty for the name change will become AMD 30 000;
• state duty for a duplicate of civil status acts registration certificate will become AMD 5 000, etc.