Monday, December 16 2019 15:38

ArmInfo.Head of the "Legal Education and Control" NGO Arpine Hovhannisyan made an appeal to President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian in connection with the  amendments to the law "On the Constitutional Court".

On her Facebook page, Hovhannisyan turned to the President, noting,  "A law was sent to him that caused a real storm of discussion among  lawyers". <Of course, the author of the project can argue that it is  consistent with the Constitution, and I believe in his sincere belief  in this, but just the belief does not make the law constitutional. On  the page of our public organization, the provisions of the bill are  presented, which are problematic, not only from my point of view, but  also in the opinion of other lawyers>, Hovhannisyan notes.

In this regard, she noted that for President Sarkissian <the crucial  moment has come>, since he has the choice to either sign the law or  apply to the Constitutional Court to initiate relevant discussions.   To recall, the country's parliament amended the law "On the  Constitutional Court" and the law "On the provision of activities,  services and social guarantees of officials", which proposed to  introduce a new model for early retirement of judges of the  Constitutional Court on a voluntary basis. The government of the  country proposes to introduce into the current legislation a  provision according to which if the judges of the Constitutional  Court retire before December 31, 2020, then their pension within two  months will be commensurate with the current salary, taking into  account the allowances, which will total more than 1 million drams  per month for each judge.  

Earlier, the Ministry of Justice noted that as a result of the  application of new rates, the monthly pension of the chairman of the  Constitutional Court will be 1 375 712 drams, and the pension of a  member of the Constitutional Court - 1.031.784 drams. The total  amount of pensions of 6 judges and the chairman of the Constitutional  Court will be 90 796 992 drams per month. The ministry said that if  the judge of the Constitutional Court currently receives AMD 793.680  and the chairman - AMD 1.058.240, then this amount will add up to 30%  of the salary. As ArmInfo previously reported, on September 14, the  Armenian Constitutional Court rejected the consideration of the  deprivation of authority of its head Hrayr Tovmasyan.  At the meeting  of the Constitutional Court in the case of Hrayr Tovmasyan, in  addition to Tovmasyan himself, the recently elected judge Vahe  Grigoryan was absent. The only judge to vote for the deprivation of  Tovmasyan's powers was Felix Tokhyan.

Even the second elected judge, Arman Dilanyan, voted against  considering the deprivation of the powers of the chairman of the  court. On October 4, the National Assembly of Armenia, with 98 votes  in favor, 1 vote against, adopted the appeal prepared by the  parliamentary fraction of the My Step bloc to the Constitutional  Court on the termination of the powers of Hrayr Tovmasyan. The  initiative of the ruling party was initially supported by colleagues  from the Bright Armenia faction. In a statement by the parliament,  the Constitutional Court presented four grounds for terminating  Tovmasyan's powers. First, he did not have the right to participate  in the consideration of the Constitutional Court <Kocharyan's case>,  since he was connected not only with him, but also with the  Republicans, in particular, with former President Serzh Sargsyan.   Second, Tovmasyan is the godfather of lawyer Kocharyan Aram Orbelian.   Third, Tovmasyan's previous statements on the "March 1 case" give  reason to consider his position partial. The fourth justification is  that Tovmasyan neglected all these circumstances and did not report  the impossibility of his participation in the consideration of the  "Kocharyan case".