Tuesday, May 26 2020 18:41

ArmInfo. The model of the Constitutional Court fixed by the Constitution of Armenia provides for a 12-year term of office of 9 judges of the Constitutional Court, and the term of office of its chairman elected by the judges of the  Constitutional Court is 6 years. A similar opinion was expressed by  ArmInfo, Tagui Dzhulakyan, member of the Permanent Parliamentary  Commission on State and Legal Affairs from the My Step Bloc.

"However, despite the presence of this rather democratic model in the  seventh chapter of the Constitution, the former authorities, through  various tricks, defined a transition clause in the transitional  provisions that would allow for the implementation of the COP model  provided for in the seventh chapter only in 2035.  The whole point of  the changes we plan through parliamentary voting is in implementing  this model, not in 2035, but immediately. And in the legal sense,  these changes, of course, come from the Constitution and are called  for the implementation of the Constitution, "she emphasized.

Dzhulakyan noted that this change, fixed in the seventh chapter of  the Fundamental Law, was not implemented due to the 213th article  concluded in transitional provisions. The latter, according to her  conviction, was written with the aim of future tricks, allowing to  steer in the Constitutional Court exclusively "their own" and  accordingly keep it under the control of the authorities.

Commenting on the prospects of this document sent by the Minister of  Justice Rustam Badasyan to the Venice Commission, the parliamentarian  noted that the draft was sent in order to get a consultation from the  commission. Dzhulakyan ruled out the possibility that the commission  would recognize this way of resolving the crisis around the  Constitutional Court as not legal. Including, based on the fact that  this model was approved by the Venice Commission back in 2015.

"I note that in Armenia we are already accused of inability to solve  this problem through a constitutional referendum. Moreover, people  who recently accused us of organizing a campaign are accused.  Moreover, when there was only one person infected with coronavirus in  Armenia. It really looks very funny when the same people convince  society that the government refused to referendum because of  disbelief in their own forces. We must fix that in the presence of  more than 7 thousand infected, a referendum is impossible. This is a  fact that cannot be avoided, "the parliamentarian summed up.

Earlier, Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan sent several questions  regarding the speedy implementation of the 2015 referendum, but the  unrealized model of the Constitutional Court, to the Venice  Commission of the Council of Europe. Armenia expects an advisory  opinion of the commission on an alternative mechanism for the  dissolution of the Constitutional Court. The referendum was scheduled  for April 5, 2020. The draft amendments provided for the termination  of powers of the chairman and seven members of the Constitutional  Court, appointed before the constitutional reform in 2015.