News
Newsfeed
News
Thursday
March 28
Show news feed

The National Assembly of Armenia today held a very short special session and considered and adopted the package of laws on making an amendment to the Law “Rules of Procedure” of the National Assembly and attached laws in the second reading.

There were 89 votes “in favor”, and nobody voted against the laws since the Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia factions didn’t participate in the session.

The issue was presented by deputy of the My Step faction Vahagn Hovakimyan, who stated that the bills proposed to amend a particular article of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly and have the parliamentary speaker promulgate the draft constitutional amendments adopted by the National Assembly within a seven-day period instead of sending it to the President to be signed.

In his turn, Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan said the following: “I saw a comment according to which the Armenian parliament wants to take the power of the President. I would simply like to inform that the parliament has discussed this part of the bill with the President and his staff. Moreover, the staff pinpointed the gap in the legislation and recommended fixing it and introduced a clear regulation, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Armenian parliament passed, in the second and final reading, the draft amendments to the Constitution. A total of 89 MPs voted for the bill.

The opposition Bright Armenia and Prosperous Armenia factions were not participating in the sitting.

According to the said amendments, the Constitutional Court judges who have been in office for 12 years and more shall be removed from office, while the current president of the court, Hrayr Tovmasyan, will continue to be a judge of the court, but no longer as its president.

Earlier, the Venice Commission said in a statement it regrets that a proposal for constitutional amendments was introduced in the Armenian Parliament on the day of the adoption by the Venice Commission of its opinion.

According to Secretary General Marija Pejcinovic Buric, "the constitutional crisis in Armenia can be solved with the Venice Commission’s guidance."

"I invite all authorities to be guided by the Venice Commission recommendations to overcome the constitutional crisis through smooth implementation of the relevant provisions of the 2015 Constitution and in accordance with Council of Europe standards," she concluded.

!
This text available in   Հայերեն and Русский
Print
Read more:
All