Armenian Parliament Demands Referendum

The parliament of Armenia adopted a decision to hold a national referendum to terminate the powers of the chairman and 6 members of the Constitutional Court. The ruling party, with a landslide majority in the National Assembly, voted in favor of holding a referendum, while 15 members of the parliamentary minority “Bright Armenia” voted against, “Prosperous Armenia” party, the second biggest faction in the parliament, refused to vote.

The ruling “My Step” alliance says that this is the only way out of the constitutional crisis in the country ongoing for two years.

Armenians held a constitutional referendum in 2015 when Serzh Sargsyan decided to change the constitution so as to guarantee him life-long rule of the country and enabling him to switch positions and become prime minister of the country after his last presidential term in April 2018.

The opposition campaigned against the change of constitution but lost the referendum due to mass fraud and falsification of the results of the referendum. The referendum turned the country from semi-presidential to a parliamentary republic with the prime minister as head of the state.

However, the change of the constitution didn’t help Sargsyan to maintain power. After the end of his last presidential term, Sargsyan worked as the prime minister of the country for just five working days. Sargsyan’s maneuver changing his seats from presidential post to the post of prime minister resulted in countrywide protests which forced him to resign. These protests were ater named the “Velvet Revolution”.

The reasons for the current constitutional crisis in Armenia are the contradictions between the old and new constitutions. Previously, the Constitutional Court of Armenia consisted of “members”, while under constitutional amendments which took effect in April 2018, the Constitutional Court consists of “judges” rather than “members,” as was the case until April 2018. The current Constitutional Court consists of two judges and seven members and these seven members, therefore, cannot be considered “judges” according to some constitutional experts.

The members of the Constitutional Court, according to previous constitutions, held their posts until their retirement, while, according to the new one, the judges hold the position for 12 years. And although the current Constitution stipulates a 12-year term of office for Constitutional court members, the overwhelming majority of members of the old Constitutional Court will serve much longer, sometimes three times longer than stipulated in the applicable Constitution.

In the new constitution, there is no word, that the members of the Constitutional Court become judges of the court automatically. Besides these terminological contradictions, there are also other contradictions, such as who nominates the constitutional judges, who votes for them, who elects the Chairman of the Constitutional Court, what the requirements for the judges of the Constitutional court are, and in the transition articles of the Constitution there is no suggestion for how these contradictions can be solved.

The Government and the Parliament of Armenia earlier tried to solve this problem by suggesting the members of the Constitutional Court maintain all social guarantees if they exclusively voluntary agree to early retirement. Parliament approved the draft of the law represented by the government, however, none of the members of the Constitutional Court expressed willingness to retire early.

A separate case is that of the Chairman of the Constitutional court, with no specifications as to who can become Chairman, the constitutional term and with what conditions.

The Constitution says that the Chairman of the Constitutional court must be non-partisan, while the current head of the Constitutional court Hray Tovmsyan was a member of the former ruling Republican party, member of parliament from the Republican faction, and formerly appointed as Minister of Justice by the same party. Moreover, even after leaving the party to become a Chairman of the Constitutional Court, Tovmasyan continues to make political statements, often criticizing the government and the prime minister.

Although the current Constitution stipulates that the Chairman of the Constitutional Court should be in office for six years, the current Constitutional court’s Chairman will serve for 17 years until 2035 if nothing changes.

During his parliamentary speech on February 6th, Pashinyan focused on this topic and the juridical falsifications and manipulations which enabled Hrayr Tovmasyan to be nominated as the Chairman of the Constitutional Court with the old rules.

“The problem is that the term of office of former President of the Constitutional Court Gagik Harutyunyan would expire on March 25, 2018. If he had continued in office until the end of his term, then Hrayr Tovmasyan would not have been elected to Constitutional court chairmanship for 17 years by the National Assembly.

And to make this possible, the former authorities persuaded Gagik Harutyunyan, who had already been granted the status of Supreme Judicial Council Chairman, to tender his resignation in early March, 20 days before his term expired, so that Hrayr Tovmasyan could be elected to the Constitutional Court for life at March 20 National Assembly session, which was the last regular session of the National Assembly before the new Constitution came into force.

Gagik Harutyunyan submitted his resignation on March 5, 2018, but the staff of the National Assembly understood that if Gagik Harutyunyan resigns on March 5, there would be procedural obstacles that could make it impossible for Hrayr Tovmasyan to be elected as the Chairman of the Constitutional court for 17 years on March 20, 2018, at the regular session of the National Assembly. Therefore, according to published data, they resort to fraud and register Gagik Harutyunyan’s resignation on March 2, allowing official falsification.

A criminal case has been instituted in this Special Investigation Service and my political assessment is unanimous. With this fraud and this whole story, the embezzlement of power has been allowed”-stated Pashinyan.

Addressing the members of the Constitutional court, the prime minister said: “You can solve that crisis yourself, by doing great service to the state and the people, by providing a valuable service. You, the ones elected under the old procedure, can resign as a member of the Constitutional Court. You can do it today, tomorrow, or you can do it before the President signs the decision on the referendum”. He added, “If you accept the offer, we will go ahead. If this is not acceptable to you, then the question, I am sure, will be resolved by the people of Armenia, because the Constitution is for the people and not the people for the Constitution”.

Expressing his commitments to democracy and democratic values, Pashinyan assured that the leading international observer organizations-the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the European Union, the CIS, etc. will be invited to Armenia, to observe the referendum.

Representatives from the Council of Europe already reacted to the statements of the prime minister and the parliamentary vote, urging to send the package of amendments for the urgent opinion of the Venice Commission, the advisory body of the Council of Europe.

The members of the Constitutional Court refused to answer the questions of the journalists about the parliamentary vote.

By Karen Tovmasyan