YEREVAN. – When you say that the authorities see a connection between SJC [(Supreme Judicial Council)] chairman Ruben Vardazaryan and [opposition Homeland Party leader] Artur Vanetsyan, the cooked chicken will laugh at it. It’s not that they see a connection, but those people have publicly announced that they are friends. Edmon Marukyan, chairman of the opposition Bright Armenia Party and head of its faction in the National Assembly (NA), stated this at Friday’s briefing of the NA.

As for the SJC chairman's statement on November 15 of last year, Marukyan said: "Which MP from the ruling faction condemned the prime minister's statement about 'whining judges?' They did not condemn. And the chairman of the SJC turned that statement against them. Do not make such a statement that others would not cite that statement! If their leader did it, it is normal, [but] if the chairman of the SJC did it—with a different nuance, it is condemnable? You reap what you sow.”

Referring to the criminal case on the assassination attempt on PM Nikol Pashinyan, Marukyan said: "If the evidence in that case were overwhelming, the judges would not have gone under that burden and would not have selected arrest as a pretrial measure against the accused. ‘Raw’ cases should not be sent to court and expect the court to make decisions on those ‘raw’ cases that it will later have problems with the decision it has made."

As for the possible ties of the judges with the former authorities, Marukyan says that Armenia has become a country of talks in the air. "If there is a fact that a judge took a bribe, if there is a fact that someone called and instructed the judge, [then] arrest, detain, try, [and] we will applaud, say, this judge is not independent because he is carrying out an order. It’s not by saying so. If there is no fact, who needs the fairy tale?," he added.