As far as I know, judge of the Constitutional Court Hrayr Tovmasyan had voted in favor of declaring the bill unconstitutional. This is what deputy of the My Step faction of the National Assembly of Armenia Gevorg Papoyan told reporters today, touching upon the decision of the Constitutional Court on declaring Article 300.1 (overthrow of the constitutional order) of the Criminal Code of Armenia unconstitutional.

“The bill was adopted in 2009, and the Constitutional Court has declared it unconstitutional. It was adopted by a parliament and political team, the major representative of which was Hrayr Tovmasyan. As far as I know, judge of the Constitutional Court Hrayr Tovmasyan had voted in favor of declaring the bill unconstitutional,” he stated.

Asked whether the political authorities, including Nikol Pashinyan weren’t rushing when they declared that the case of the events of March 1, 2008 is revealed, the deputy said the following: “The authorities declared that they won’t interfere in the court’s actions. In our opinion, courts are at least half independent, meaning they are completely independent from the incumbent authorities, but their independence from other people is another story. One of the promises that we will make during the election campaign will be to achieve 100% independence of courts.”

Touching upon the comment that the Constitutional Court declared Article 300.1 unconstitutional, even though the authorities changed the composition of the Court and the latter was considered reformed, the deputy said the following: “The authorities believe the crisis in the Constitutional Court is solved. We didn’t solve it in a way to have our friends and acquaintances become judges. We implemented mechanisms for formation of the Constitutional Court. We didn’t try to interfere and didn’t try to have an impact on courts.”