From now on, in all cases where it is established that the care and upbringing of children born from the father of a newborn child has been effectively carried out by the father, when determining the birth benefit, children born from the father will be taken into account in determining the status of the newborn child.
Moreover, considering the legal possibility established by the Family Code of the Republic of Armenia to determine the issue of child custody by mutual agreement of the parents, the fact of whether the care of the child has been carried out by the father based on a court decision or mutual agreement with the child's mother will not be given importance:
This position was expressed by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia while discussing the constitutionality of the legal norm enshrined in point 3 of sub-point "b" of point 8 of Annex 1 of the Government of the Republic of Armenia's decision N 275-N of March 6, 2014, on "Determining the amount of one-time benefit for the birth of a child, establishing the procedure for assigning and paying the one-time benefit for the birth of a child" (see Decision SDO-1438).
As is known, the determination of the status of the newborn child is crucial in the issue of assigning the birth benefit, and any unregulated requirement in the legal regulations can lead to a decrease in the status, reducing the possible benefit amount from 1,500,000 AMD to as low as 50,000 AMD:
In this regard, it is necessary to take into account that when determining the status of the newborn child, according to the current legal regulations, both children born from the parents of the newborn child and children born from one of them are taken into account:
If the influence of children born from both parents does not cause controversy in determining the status of the newborn child, the same cannot be assumed in the case of children born from only one parent:
The point is that in the calculation of the status of the newborn child, the question of whether the given parent has carried out the care and upbringing of the children is emphasized. For example, children and offspring born only from the mother cannot have significance in the calculation of the status of the newborn child if it is established that the care of the children during their minority has been entrusted to another person by a court decision, or the mother has been deprived of parental rights by a court order. The above formulation indicates that in all cases, the presumption of care for the children by the mother is in effect, and the opposite is confirmed only by the existence of a court act on the transfer of the care of the children to another person or the deprivation of parental rights of the children's mother by a court act.
In the case of children born from the father, however, the fact that the care of the children has been assumed and carried out by the father was confirmed by the existence of a court act on the transfer of the care of the children to the father. Such an approach by the legislator contradicted the legal norm established by the Family Code of the Republic of Armenia, which provides for the possibility of regulating issues related to the care and upbringing of children by mutual agreement of the parents:
The Constitutional Court, addressing the logic of the legal regulations established by the Family Code of the Republic of Armenia, noted that the differentiated approach enshrined in the legal act is devoid of objective grounds, as the legislator has essentially provided several procedures for determining the issue of child custody, and the choice of one or another procedure by a person cannot have negative legal consequences for them in terms of exercising the right to receive the one-time benefit for the birth of a child.