Aram Orbelyan, one of the defense attorneys of second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, today told reporters that he and the other defense attorneys are withdrawing their applications submitted to the Constitutional Court so that they don’t create problems for deputies, if they wish to appeal the amendments to the Constitution aimed at stripping the president of the Constitutional Court of his powers, RIA Novosti reports.

Earlier, the parliamentary faction of the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party had declared that it will launch a petition to collect at least 1/5 (27 parliamentarians) of the total number of deputies in order to apply to the Constitutional Court to challenge the amendments to the Constitution that envisage stripping the president of the Court of his powers. The political party called on the other Bright Armenia opposition party to join the petition and collect the required number of signatures. On Wednesday, leader of Bright Armenia Party Edmon Marukyan declared that his political party will apply to the Constitutional Court after the latter examines the case of Kocharyan so that it avoids politicizing the issue. The Constitutional Court has set July 7^th as the date of the first session.

“We are withdrawing the two applications submitted to the Constitutional Court last year. This morning, we discussed the matter with Kocharyan, and he declared that if his case might create obstacles on the path to the development of parliamentarism, the applications need to be recalled,” the attorney stated, adding that one of the factions ‘linked the issue of applying to the Constitutional Court to the case of the former president for unknown reasons’.

Orbelyan also expressed certainty that the Yerevan first instance court will discontinue the criminal case against Kochayran, taking into consideration the opinions of the European Court of Human Rights and the Venice Commission.