Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan today received the delegation led by the Director General for Human Rights and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe (CoE) Christos Giakoumopoulos.

Greeting the guests, Ararat Mirzoyan noted that after their previous meeting Armenia has implemented serious reforms in a number of directions: the process continues, particularly today the National Assembly has been discussing a huge package of judiciary reforms, and these reforms will again become essential steps for the corruption prevention and recuperation and independence of the judicial system.

Christos Giakoumopoulos was interested in the ongoing processes over the Constitutional Court and the expecting referendum in the near future, noting that the Council of Europe understands that this is very important for the people of Armenia and will be glad to support them.

Ararat Mirzoyan explained in detail the situation and stressed that he strongly believes that this referendum and, in general, the solution to this issue will be a very serious step on the way to further democratization of Armenia. The Speaker of the National Assembly underlined that there cannot be full democracy if the branches of power don’t restrain each other, as well as the judicial power cannot be part of democratic system and restrain the other branches, if it is not independent, unbiased, objective and professional, yet there is no such Constitutional Court in Armenia, and the referendum is the best way to make those changes.