Pashinyan accuses Tovmasyan of Constitutional Court privatization
18.07.2019,
11:08
The letter of Constitutional Court Judge Vahe Grigoryan has shocked Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the premier said Wednesday in an interview with Azatutyun TV.
YEREVAN, July 18. /ARKA/. The letter of Constitutional Court Judge Vahe Grigoryan has shocked Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the premier said Wednesday in an interview with Azatutyun TV.
On June 28, Vahe Grigoryan sent an alarming letter to the government, the National Assembly, the president and members of the Constitutional Court. He said in the letter that a constitutional crisis has broken out in Armenia.
"Reading this letter, I understood that in 2018 all of us concentrated out attention on former president Serzh Sargsyan's political manipulations and failed to notice a manipulation of the same scale in the Constitutional Court," Pashinyan said.
The thing is that 40 days before the new Constitution came into force, the former chairman of the Constitutional Court Gagik Harutyunyan resigned as a result of a political bargain.
Gagik Harutyunyan received the position of the head of the Supreme Judicial Council, Serzh Sargsyan obtained the prime-ministerial post, and Hrayr Tovmayan, to whom the latter owed his life-long prime-ministerial seat since Tovmasyan was the author of the Constitution tailored just to Sargsyan, was rewarded with the Constitutional Court chairmanship.
Along with that, the new constitution, caring of the members elected before it came into force, specifies that the old, 2005 Constitution's rules apply to them, and they can be in office for life or before they turn 65.
"This means that we will not be able to have the Constitution Court described in the new Constitution at least until 2030," Pashinyan said in his interview.
The prime minister accused Tovmasyan of privatization of the Constitutional Court and said that "we have the Armenia of 2019 and the Constitutional Court of 1995 in both direct and figurative senses".
"It is clear to me - the Armenia of 2019 should have the Constitutional Court of 2019, and let nobody doubt that this problem must be solved," Pashinyan said. -0----
On June 28, Vahe Grigoryan sent an alarming letter to the government, the National Assembly, the president and members of the Constitutional Court. He said in the letter that a constitutional crisis has broken out in Armenia.
"Reading this letter, I understood that in 2018 all of us concentrated out attention on former president Serzh Sargsyan's political manipulations and failed to notice a manipulation of the same scale in the Constitutional Court," Pashinyan said.
The thing is that 40 days before the new Constitution came into force, the former chairman of the Constitutional Court Gagik Harutyunyan resigned as a result of a political bargain.
Gagik Harutyunyan received the position of the head of the Supreme Judicial Council, Serzh Sargsyan obtained the prime-ministerial post, and Hrayr Tovmayan, to whom the latter owed his life-long prime-ministerial seat since Tovmasyan was the author of the Constitution tailored just to Sargsyan, was rewarded with the Constitutional Court chairmanship.
Along with that, the new constitution, caring of the members elected before it came into force, specifies that the old, 2005 Constitution's rules apply to them, and they can be in office for life or before they turn 65.
"This means that we will not be able to have the Constitution Court described in the new Constitution at least until 2030," Pashinyan said in his interview.
The prime minister accused Tovmasyan of privatization of the Constitutional Court and said that "we have the Armenia of 2019 and the Constitutional Court of 1995 in both direct and figurative senses".
"It is clear to me - the Armenia of 2019 should have the Constitutional Court of 2019, and let nobody doubt that this problem must be solved," Pashinyan said. -0----
