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HAK members file appeal

Politics

The four candidates on the Armenian National Congress's (HAK) proportional list appealed to the Central Electoral Commission with appeals to drop their mandates.

After the 2009 Yerevan mayor elections, HAK members Stepan Demirchyan, Hrant Bagratyan, Levon Zurabyan and Lyudmila Sargsyan became members of the Council of Elders of Yerevan. Even though the HAK had refused to participate in the Council's sessions, it hadn't filed an appeal to the Central Electoral Commission.

CEC Secretary Armen Smbatyan says the HAK was informed that it had to drop the mandate to assume the deputy mandate because the two are incompatible posts.

Representative of the HAK's legal affairs committee Armen Khachatryan tends to differ.

"The Council of Elders isn't considered an office. Unlike the mayor or heads of municipality departments, the members of the Council of Elders don't receive salaries. It is more like a public body with elected members."

According to the CEC Secretary, it's not about the members of the Council of Elders, but the deputies that don't have the right to hold other offices.

"It's about the constitutional norm. This is a limitation against deputies of the National Assembly. With that logic, for example, in the law on Individual Entrepreneurs it should have been stated that entrepreneurs can't be deputies of the National Assembly. But that is not stated at all."