Parliament majority introduces bill on terminating powers of Constitutional Court Chairman, justices

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 5, ARMENPRESS. The ruling My Step bloc of the Armenian parliament is proposing to terminate the powers of Constitutional Court Chairman Hrayr Tovmasyan and the other justices.

The bill’s copy is published at the parliament website.

“The tenure of the Constitutional Court Chairman and Members appointment before the initiation of Chapter 7 of the Constitution is being terminated. Nominations for the vacant positions of Constitutional Court justices are done respectively by the Cabinet, the President and the General Assembly of Judges,” reads the bill’s text.

As for the reasons of introducing the bill, the ruling bloc has noted that the crisis around the Constitutional Court has several aspects now which pose serious challenges for Armenia’s democracy, sovereignty and legal qualities.

The bill mentions that there are “obvious substantial differences” of the positions of judges appointed in the past and those being elected under Chapter 7 of the 2015 Constitution.

It says that there is significant difference between the terms of tenure of justices elected under the 2015 Constitution and those appointed earlier.

“Whereas newly elected judges serve for 12 years, the previously appointed members, who have been appointed under the 1995 Constitution (two members) will serve in office until 70 years of age, while judges appointed by the 2005 Constitution (5 members) until 65 years of age. In other words, in order to present the situation more descriptively, for example one Constitutional Court member can be in office in this judicial composition for 33 years (from 1996 to 2029), while a newly elected judge is limited to 12 years in office”.

“The purpose of the bill is to resolve the crisis of the lack of trust for the Constitutional Court by the society and the branches of the government and to form a Constitutional Court envisaged by Chapter 7 of the Constitution.

The My Step bloc also mentions “deficit of democratic legitimacy” of the Constitutional Court which is caused by the high court itself, due to continuously having ignored the guarantees of the people of electing their authorities during presidential and parliamentary elections in the past. The ruling bloc called the high court’s actions as “disastrous”.

“It is a reality that currently the Constitutional Court, with this composition of members, has the lowest approval rating among public governance bodies and the restoration of this approval is impossible in the event of preserving the same composition”.

“The National Assembly of the 7th Convocation, as a supreme body vested with primary democratic mandate formed with the steady preservation of all guarantees of the right of free election in the past 20 years and Paragraph two of the Constitution, which has the powers of making Constitutional changes, is hereby aiming at giving a final and fundamental solution to the issue of forming the Constitutional Court under the rules of Chapter 7 of the 2015 Constitution.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan