YEREVAN. – Zaruhi Postanjyan, who is opposition Heritage Party National Assembly (NA) Faction Secretary and member Armenia’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), will be removed from the delegation.    

NA Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan made a respective statement during Thursday’s parliamentary session.

“The expression of a political view is not an absolute right. The Constitution of Armenia envisions that an MP’s right to freely express his or her opinion is limited by the impermissibility of insult or libel. Also, the PACE Regulation contains a ban on using expressions that violate human dignity.

“Given NA MP Zaruhi Postanjyan’s demeanor yesterday during the PACE session and based on Armenia’s law, I [hereby] declare that I have consulted with the National Assembly factions and I intend to make a change in Armenia’s delegation to PACE,” Abrahamyan stated, in particular.  

To note, during the question and answer session at Wednesday’s PACE plenary session in Strasbourg, France, Zaruhi Postanjyan had asked Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan the following question:

“You have appeared here [in the PACE session] not by the will of the people, but [rather] as a consequence of organized crime, the theft of the Armenian people’s vote. Therefore you cannot de jure represent the will and right of the Armenian people. [So,] I’ll give you another question. Have you been to a casino in Europe and lost 70 million euros there, and who paid that amount in your stead?”     

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am