Lawyer: Attempt to strip Narek Karapetyan of parliamentary immunity  aimed at undermining his activities in Armenian parliament

ArmInfo. The attempt to strip Narek Karapetyan, a member of the "Strong Armenia" bloc's political  council, of parliamentary immunity is an act of political absurdity  and persecution aimed at undermining his activities in the Armenian  parliament. This was stated by lawyer and representative of the  "Strong Armenia" bloc, Aram Vardevanyan, in a conversation with  journalists in Yerevan on July 22 in front of the Central Electoral  Commission (CEC).

According to the lawyer, by handing Karapetyan his parliamentary  mandate on July 21, the Armenian Central Electoral Commission  essentially recognized that the political party's candidate now has  the status of an MP. According to him, the same Central Election  Commission also announced it was considering the issue of consenting  to initiate criminal prosecution. "This has never happened before. In  July 2021, after the Constitutional Court's decision had already been  published, the Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia submitted a  motion seeking consent to initiate criminal prosecution and  imprisonment against Ishkhan Zakaryan, a member of parliament. The  CEC then returned this motion, just as it returned a similar motion  filed against Narek Karapetyan on July 8, 2026," the lawyer noted.

Today, as Vardevanyan noted, they are dealing with the same  Prosecutor General's Office. "From the content of the petition, it's  clear that the Prosecutor General's Office confused the status of the  Central Election Commission with that of the Court of Appeals or the  Administrative Court of Appeals. And apparently they expected the  Central Election Commission to accept the petition this time, which  is precisely what happened. This all tells us that this is a  political absurdity, a persecution aimed at undermining Narek  Karapetyan's activities, or more precisely, his work in the Armenian  parliament," the political party member asserted.

According to Vardevanyan, one gets the impression that the Central  Election Commission has challenged its own decision. Moreover, the  interpretation of it by Central Election Commission Chairman Vahagn  Hovakimyan has nothing to do with the law. Essentially, as the lawyer  noted, from the moment the Constitutional Court made its decision  until July 11, those elected as deputies were not granted immunity. 

"This means that a person who could become an MP, unless they  withdraw, should not be protected in any way. This means that the  Central Election Commission, the Prosecutor General's Office, and the  Investigative Committee must now find ways to circumvent the  Constitutional Court's 2021 ruling. 

Meanwhile, the Central Election Commission is an independent body  that should have been guided not by the wishes of the Prosecutor  General's Office, but by the court's decision. But the situation, as  we see, is the opposite. This suggests that everything happening  against Narek Karapetyan and Strong Armenia MPs David Ghazinyan and  Hayk Sukiasyan goes beyond the bounds of law and order," Vardevanyan  concluded.  As a reminder, on July 21, Vardevanyan announced that the  Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia had submitted a motion to the  Central Election Commission to strip Narek Karapetyan of his  immunity.  According to Vardevanyan, they intended to file a motion  for time to review the case, but Karapetyan opposed the proposal. The  lawyer also noted that members of parliament enjoy additional  immunity. He added that parliament is there to override this  immunity. The matter remains under consideration by the Central  Election Commission of Armenia today, July 22.