PREMIER- EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT

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According to the coalition’s draft adopted within the process of constitutional reform the Prime Minister is rather helpless and can be defined as the executive director of the government. The coalition’s draft constitutional amendments has nothing in common with the semi-presidential government system, this project is typical for the president one. “The most important question is whether the parliament is empowered to form the government or not? Besides, whether the President has the right to dismiss the Prime Minister without the consent of the parliament? If these two components are absent, the draft proves to be not appropriate to the semi-presidential government system”, Justice faction secretary Victor Dallakyan stated.

According to the logic of the semi-presidential government system the parliament should be entitled to form the government. The opposition has made the following proposal: once the opposition proposes a nominee for the post of the Prime Minister, if the parliament does not approve it, the initiative passes to the National Assembly. However, the coalition’s draft calls for the following principle: the President has the right to propose the Prime Minister twice, if the parliament does not ratify it, the President dissolves the parliament.

“If the President proposes a nominee twice and every time the candidature is rejected the President dissolves the parliament he uses all the instruments at hand to form the government, which will be useful for him”, Victor Dallakyan says. In his opinion, the items, according to which the President appoints this or that parliament member by the presentation of the Prime Minister are symbolic, since the President himself appoints or dismissed the Prime Minister, thus the latter is only a mechanism in the President’s hands. Consequently, according to the coalition’s draft the government and the Prime Minister is subordinate to the one, who appoints them, that is to the President. To note, the semi-presidential system supposes that the President cannot dismiss the Prime Minister, who enjoys the support of the parliamentary majority.

For Ramkavar Azatakan extra-parliamentary party there is no particular difference who appoints the Premier, responsibility is the most important factor. Party leader Harutyun Harutyunyan noted, “Is we follow the principle of power division, it is even natural if the President appoint the Prime Minister. Thus he undertakes the responsibility for the activities of the government.”

Diana Markosyan