IS THERE ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN CC DECISION AND NA?

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Two days ago the Constitutional Court (CC) upheld the claim of the Opposition and found the involvement of judges in the electoral commissions anti-constitutional.

“Provided the CC didn’t make such a decision, the provision might be omitted from the Electoral Code as a result of the Constitutional amendments,” says NA Speaker Tigran Torosyan while commenting on the CC decision.

Prior to answering the question of A1+, Mr. Torosyan noted that the Constitutional amendments were of great importance in the political sphere and were mainly in favour of the Opposition representatives who were against the amendments. “The Opposition could appeal to the CC and make it turn down the proposal of judges’ involvement,” added Mr. Torosyan.

The NA Speaker doesn’t see any reason for rejecting judges’ involvement in the electoral commissions as “there a lot of countries where judges are involved in the electoral commissions and this arouses no problems. As for Armenia, there are two factors mingling with the endorsement of the proposal. There are two contradicting provisions in the acting EC. One of them stipulated that the electoral commission is a state institution whereas according to the other provision it is an independent free body.”

I see a contradiction in this connection which must be taken into consideration. Besides, provided electoral commissions are state bodies, contradictions arouse in connection with Article 98 of the Constitution as it states that judges mustn’t hold other posts in state bodies.”

The NA Speaker informed A1+ that the amendments to the EC, endorsed during the first hearing, will be put to the second hearing in December.