Armenian Prime Minister about the situation with the Constitutional  Court and recommendations of the Venice Commission

ArmInfo. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan presented his views on the letter of the newly elected member of the Constitutional Court Vahe Grigoryan, in  which he states about the crisis of the Constitutional Court and  presents ways to solve this crisis.

Thus, in an interview with ''Radio Azatutyun'' Pashinyan, referring  to this question, said the following: ''I must tell you frankly that  Vahe Grigoryan's letter simply shocked me. Why? Because, reading this  letter, I realized that during the transformation period of 2018, we  all, being concentrated on political manipulation created around  Serzh Sargsyan, and being fully engaged in this issue, possibly due  to lack of professional knowledge or ignorance of nuances, did not  notice the manipulation of the same scale that occurred in the  Constitutional Court.

What has happened? When constitutional changes were made in 2015, we  were told that this is a reform of the country's full institutional  system: indeed, we should have a new government, a new presidential  institution, a new parliamentary institution and a new Constitutional  Court, because the authors of the text of the Constitution, in fact,  meant the following "We have found the ideal model of the  Constitutional Court in the Republic of Armenia, which would meet our  current needs".

Let us not forget, the Constitutional Court was one of the most  discredited institutions in the Republic of Armenia due to  circumstances known to you, because the same Constitutional Court  ratified all election frauds since 1996, and, in fact, there is a  crisis of trust also regarding the Constitutional Court. And the  authors of the text of the Constitution, in fact, said: people, this  is the new Constitution, and the Constitutional Court should be like  this. Judges of the Constitutional Court should not be elected for  life or before they turn 65, but for a period of 12 years. Second:  the chairman of the Constitutional Court should not be elected by the  National Assembly, but by the Constitutional Court for a period of 6  years. That is, every six years there should be a change of the  chairman of the constitutional court. Do we have today such a  Constitutional Court that would correspond to the text, spirit and  architecture of our current Constitution?  Do we have a  Constitutional Court, which is described in the Constitution? We do  not have such a constitutional court.

Why not? Because 40 days before the entry into force of the new  Constitution, the long-term chairman of the Constitutional Court  Gagik Harutyunyan resigned, as it turned out later, as a result of an  interstate deal and manipulation. A major bargaining took place, in  which several key persons received what they needed - Serzh Sargsyan  received the post of Prime Minister, Gagik Harutyunyan - the post of  chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council. 40 days before the new  Constitution came into force, after which we would have the newly  created Constitutional Court, he resigned and instead of him Hrayr  Tovmasyan was nominated and elected by the National Assembly as a  member, and later the President of the Constitutional Court.

Meanwhile, according to our new Constitution, it is stipulated that  the Constitutional Court itself elects the Chairman of the  Constitutional Court, and, more importantly, since both the paper and  the pen were in their hands, they wrote transitional provisions  stating that to those members of the Constitutional Court who were  elected until April 9 [2018], the provisions of the Constitution of  edition of 2005 should  apply. That is, they are not elected for 12  years, but, in fact, for life, or before they turn 65, and this also  applies to the chairman of the Constitutional Court.

And what do we have? It turns out that we have the Constitutional  Court described in our Constitution, but we cannot have such a court,  at least until 2035, because since Hrayr Tovmasyan was the author of  the text of the Constitution, he wrote it in such a way, naturally,  in agreement with Serzh Sargsyan and Gagik Harutyunyan so that he  could remain chairman of the Constitutional Court until 2035, despite  the fact that our Constitution already provides that we do not want  such a Constitutional Court.

The will of the founder of the Constitution is different. We need  another Constitutional Court. It turns out that we cannot apply the  provision on the Constitutional Court until 2035, because Hrayr  Tovmasyan, with the help of Serzh Sargsyan and Gagik Harutyunyan,  privatized the Constitutional Court in the same way as you can  privatize, say, the notary office.

And today we have a situation in Armenia in 2019, both in the direct  and figurative sense, and in the constitutional sense, and in the  sense of revolution, we have the Constitutional Court of the year  1995. And, in fact, it is evident that there was a privatization of  the Constitutional Court, as in the tender, where the terms of  reference are written so that only one company could participate in  it. And today the Constitutional Court is deprived of the right to  elect its chairman until 2035, despite the fact that the Constitution  clearly states that the chairman of the Constitutional Court is  elected from the composition of the court. And other representatives  of the Constitutional Court are deprived of their constitutional  right to claim the status of the Chairman of the Constitutional Court  every six years ... That is, until 2035 the chapter [of the  Constitution] concerning the Constitutional Court is not valid  because it has been privatized''.

According to Pashinyan, perhaps this chapter of the Constitution will  never be applied, considering the dynamics of changes in the  Constitution in Armenia, where the basic law has been changed every  10 years and our people will never have the Constitutional Court of  our dreams described by Vardan Poghosyan, Serzh Sargsyan, Hrayr  Tovmasyan and Gagik Harutyunyan, who convinced our citizens to  support this model.

''Armenia of 2019 must have a 2019 Constitutional Court. Here is a  political task. And let no one doubt that this task should be  solved'', said the head of the Armenian government.

According to Pashinyan, he can admit that many members of the  Constitutional Court could be in the present situation unwittingly.  ''But is quite clear who are the authors of the manipulation. The  authors of the manipulation are four people - Serzh Sargsyan, Hrayr  Tovmasyan, Gagik Harutyunyan and the parliamentary majority  represented by the Republican Party, "the prime minister said.

''This is my political assessment. I believe that the National  Assembly should speak with the Constitutional Court, or the public or  the expert community should do this, so that  the Constitutional  Court gets rid from the status of a privatized booth'', Pashinyan  stressed.

As for the Venice Commission, as Pashinyan noted, this structure had  one official position, which was made public on the official website.  "According to this position, they consider the cooperation with the  Government of the Republic of Armenia fruitful and agreed that we  should talk about these legislative changes. I can say that, at least  at the level of political contacts, both the Council of Europe and  the European Union expressed full support to the Armenian government  on the reform of the judicial and legal system, "the Prime Minister  stated.