YEREVAN. – It has become clear that Prosperous Armenia Party Chairman Gagik Tsarukyan is the MP who is most absent from the National Assembly (NA) sessions. He has not even set foot on the current convocation Parliament, Hraparak daily reports.   

“Following a regular session, the computer calculates as to who was absent for discourteous reasons from more than half of the voting, whether or not [the given MP] has submitted [respective] documents. Subsequently, [and] with the NA Speaker’s permission, the matter of the discourteously absent [MP] is put on the NA plenary session, with the prospect of stripping the [MP’s parliamentary] mandate.   

At the same time, the NA Speaker’s verbal permission likewise [can be grounds for] the absence. 

[But] Throughout the modern history of parliamentarism [in Armenia], no NA MP has been stripped of mandate due absence [from the NA sessions]; even the [given MP’s] salary was not withheld. Furthermore, such matter has not been put to the NA plenary session. And, also, since there is no law on recalling an MP, it is no longer important as to the ‘section’ pursuant to which the MP was absent from the sessions,” Hraparak writes.