ArmInfo.The National Assembly of Armenia in the second and final reading adopted the draft amendments to the Constitution of Armenia. 89 lawmakers voted "for" the adoption of the bill, against-0.
It should be noted that the opposition factions Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia boycotted the meeting, on the agenda of which there was one issue - amending Article 213 of the Constitution of Armenia.
According to the proposed amendments, the powers of the judges of the Constitutional Court, who have been in office for more than 12 years, must be terminated. After the vacant posts of judges are taken, the election of a new head of the Constitutional Court will take place.
Today it has also become known that legislative amendments will get legal force after they are approved during the second reading and will not be presented for signature to the president, as it should.
"Changes to the law , to the law and to the Judicial Code will not be laid on the table of the President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian for signature," co-author of the legislative initiative, lawmaker from the ruling bloc Vahagn Hovakimyan said earlier at a meeting of the Permanent Parliamentary Committee on State Legal Affairs. It is also worth noting that today Secretary General of the Council of Europe Marija Pejcinovic Buric made a statement in which she noted that the opinion of the Venice Commission, adopted on June 19 and published today, allows solving problems that were at the center of the constitutional crisis between the National Assembly of Armenia and the Constitutional Court. The CE Secretary General added that the Venice Commission recognized the legality of the implementation of the provisions of the 2015 Constitution regarding the composition of the Constitutional Court. Marija Pejcinovic Buric also stated that in order to coordinate this goal with the need to preserve judicial status and independence, the Venice Commission recommended the introduction of a new transitional period, the duration of which should be determined by the Armenian authorities.
The report also notes that the Venice Commission regretted that amendments that did not provide for such a transitional period were submitted to the National Assembly today, on the day the Opinion was adopted.
"I urge all authorities to be guided by the recommendations of the Venice Commission on overcoming the constitutional crisis by unhindered implementation of the relevant provisions of the Constitution of 2015 and in accordance with Council of Europe standards," concluded the CE Secretary General.
It should be noted that on February 6 the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia adopted a decision on submitting draft amendments to the Constitution to the referendum. 88 lawmakers voted for this decision, against 15. It is a question of introducing amendments to Article 213 of the Constitution, implying the dissolution of the Constitutional Court. A referendum on constitutional amendments was scheduled for April 5 this year. However, due to the coronavirus epidemic, it had to be postponed. As a result, the lawmakers decided to amend the Constitution themselves.