ArmInfo.The crisis around the Constitutional Court of Armenia continues. On January 13, Ararat Mirzoyan, Chairman of the RA National Assembly, stated this in an interview with reporters.
According to him, the problem, unfortunately, has not yet been resolved.
At the same time, the speaker of parliament ruled out the possibility of resolving the issue not in the legal framework. "There can be no question of political persecution of the chairman of the Constitutional Court Hrayr Tovmasyan." If I commit a crime today, and tomorrow the new government will start persecuting me for this crime, what kind of political persecution is it,"the head of the Armenian parliament said. He also called on not to draw parallels between the prosecution and the possible resignation of members of the Constitutional Court of Armenia.
Last October, a criminal case was opened in the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Armenia in connection with the alleged abuse of power by the Chairman of the Constitutional Court Hrayr Tovmasyan during his tenure as Minister of Justice.
In particular, data were obtained on the direct participation of Hrayr Tovmasyan in the crimes committed and it was justified that according to the results of the auction organized by the Yerevan Municipality, the territory No. 162 of the building No. 14 of Lane 1 st. Baghramyan was actually acquired by Tovmasyan. At the end of last year, the country's parliament amended the law "On the Constitutional Court" and the law "On the provision of activities, services and social guarantees for officials", which proposed the introduction of a new model for early retirement of judges of the Constitutional Court on a voluntary basis. Thus, the Armenian authorities made another attempt to send judges of the Constitutional Court to early retirement. The government of the country proposed introducing 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.
The institute on voluntary retirement was introduced in Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Denmark, Australia and in a number of other countries. As a result of the application of the 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. 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 authority 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 Enlightened 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 "the Kocharyan case", since it 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 Kocharian Aram Orbelian. Third, Tovmasyan's previous statements on the "March 1 case" give reason to consider his position partial. Fourth justification - Tovmasyan neglected all these circumstances and did not report the impossibility of his participation in the consideration of the "Kocharyan case".