ArmInfo. As a lawyer and one of the co-authors of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, I am ashamed of what happened in parliament yesterday. Head of the Constitutional Court Hrayr Tovmasyan stated this in an interview with reporters on June 23, speaking about amendments to the Armenian Constitution adopted yesterday in the National Assembly.
To recall, according to the amendments, the powers of judges of the Constitutional Court who have been in office for more than 12 years should be terminated, and Hrayr Tovmasyan himself will not be the President of the Constitutional Court, but will continue to work as a judge.
Tovmasyan noted that, according to the current Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, constitutional amendments are subject to preliminary constitutional review. Meanwhile, according to him, the Constitutional Court did not receive any document regarding the proposed amendments. However, he noted that it is not necessary to proceed from the fact that the decisions of the Constitutional Court are subjective. According to him, law has its own principles, and we cannot be guided by the fact that decisions taken proceed from purely personal interests. Tovmasyan noted that the National Assembly takes decisions that directly concern the National Assembly, and therefore it is strange to assume that the Constitutional Court cannot consider issues directly related to the Constitutional Court.
Regarding the prospect of losing the post of chairperson of the Constitutonal Court, here Tovmasyan noted that no post is an end in itself. Commenting on the fact that his name is mentioned in the context of his relations with the past authorities, here the head of the Constitutional Court said that he was just doing his job, and for him the statements of the former and current authorities were always in 100th place.
To recall, in May this year, RA Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan requested an opinion of the Venice Commission on three legal questions in the context of draft constitutional amendments concerning the mandate of the judges of the Constitutional Court. The Venice Commission presented a positive opinion on three legal issues put forward by the authorities, emphasized the legitimate aim of the proposed decisions and their compliance with European standards. We are talking about the above amendments to the Constitution of Armenia. "The Government of Armenia expresses satisfaction with the effective cooperation with the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission and the efforts made that are aimed at the legitimate aim of overcoming the crisis around the Constitutional Court in the current situation in accordance with European standards," the RA Ministry of Justice said in a statement issued earlier.