CONSULTATIVE BUT NOT FORMAL BODY
Support A1+!The Security Council (SC) is a phenomenon peculiar to the countries with presidential and semi-presidential state government.
As an institute the SC is functioning in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Montenegro and Ukraine. “In one case the SC is a constitutional body with an authority, in other case it is a consultative body”, specialist of the constitutional rights Vardan Poghosyan noted.
Article 7 of the Ukrainian Constitution says that the SC is the body for the issues of national security and defense under the President. The same article determined the composition of the Council – the President, Prime Minister, Ministers of Home and Foreign Affairs, head of the Security Service, etc. The resolutions of the Ukrainian SC are implemented by orders of the President.
The Lithuanian SC has more expanded authorities, i.e. the issues of utmost importance for the state are discussed and coordinated by the State Council of Defense. Both in Lithuania and Ukraine the SC composition is fixed in the Constitution and its authorities are provided by the law. The same situation can be observed in Macedonia. In Poland and Bulgaria the SC is a consultative body, the chairman of which is the President while the order of his activities is regulated by the law. Vardan Poghosyan noted that in Poland the SC does not play a big role as the government is for most part responsible for the domestic and foreign policy.
According to Article 83 of the RF Constitution the President of the country forms and heads the Federal SC, the legal status of which is determined by the law.
In the UK and Germany there no SC while in France there are several supreme councils and committees headed by the President. The acting RA Constitution states that the President is empowered to form consultative bodies.
The SC in Armenia was formed in 1991; however its authorities are not clear yet. “The frequency of the sittings held should be known”, the constitutional right specialist noted. He also informed that in 2000 during the discussion of the constitutional amendments the Venice Commission proposed to provide for the SC institute in the Constitution and determine the process of the decision making. According to Vardan Poghosyan, the SC in Armenia is inactive. He is convinced that the SC should have a constitutional status. “It would become the very forum where the decisions were made in mutual consent by the President and the government, especially in case, if the President and Prime Minister have different political affiliation.”
Victoria Abrahamyan
