The meeting of the Council of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia scheduled for Friday was not held due to the lack of a quorum.

The NA informed Armenian News-NEWS.am that if there is a quorum within two hours, this meeting will convene.

As reported earlier, the matter of petitioning to the Constitutional Court with a request to strip 32 MPs of the opposition "Armenia" and "With Honor" Factions of the NA of their parliamentary mandates is on the agenda of the aforesaid meeting.

A week ago, the NA Council convened a meeting also on this matter, but it ended immediately after the quorum because the opposition lawmakers were not present.

According to the NA regulations, if the MP regarding whom the matter of striping from the parliamentary mandate shall be addressed is not present at the session, the latter discontinues the first time. But one week later, a second respective NA Council session is convened by force of law, during which, regardless of whether or not the given MP is present, the NA Council makes a decision to petition or not to petition to the Constitutional Court with the aforesaid request.

A week ago, the ruling majority “Civil Contract” Faction of the NA had announced that they decided not to petition to the Constitutional Court.

The NA Council will discuss the matter of each MP separately, which means that the NA Council may decide not to petition to the Constitutional Court with a request to strip all the said opposition MPs of their parliamentary mandates.

The NA regulations stipulate that if an MP has been absent from more than half of the NA votes during one session for acceptable reasons, the NA Council can petition to the Constitutional Court with a request to strip this MP of his/her parliamentary mandate.