YEREVAN. – The Constitutional Court (CC) of Armenia fully endorsed the petition which the four non-ruling-coalition parliamentary forces had submitted.  

Human rights activist Artak Zeynalyan, who represented the plaintiff at the CC, told the aforementioned to reporters, following the CC ruling on the pension reforms. 

“This is the first time when a lawsuit with a wide publicity is examined in such a large extent and is approved.
“The judicial system [in Armenia] should be unbound, and it should not be surprising that the minority wins,” Zeynalyan said, in particular.

Members of the “Dem.Am [I am against]” civic initiative—which opposes the mandatory component of the new pension law in Armenia—, who had gathered outside the CC, presented red tulips to plaintiff’s attorney Meri Khachatryan, and thanked her for her efforts.

For her part, Khachatryan told reporters that the state is obligated to return the money that was mandatorily deducted from the people’s salaries ever since January 1.

“A recalculation will be done, [and] the deducted money will be returned; that is definite.

“There will be no need to go to court because the Constitutional Court decision is Armenia’s number-one constitution, and it is mandatorily subject to execution,” the attorney stressed.       

The CC on Wednesday deemed unconstitutional a whole series of articles in the new Law On Funded Pensions, which were contested with a lawsuit by the four non-ruling-coalition parliamentary factions. Specifically, the mandatory component of this law was invalidated.

The CC, however, gave the parliament and the government time until September 30 to amend the aforesaid law’s provisions that were considered unconstitutional. In addition, all the mandatory pension deductions which already were made shall be reviewed.