A short while ago, secretary of the Prosperous Armenia faction of the National Assembly of Armenia Arman Abovyan informed on his Facebook page that the action has sent its application to the Constitutional Court within the time limit prescribed by law. The faction was also joined by Tigran Urikhanyan, who left the faction months ago and is now an independent MP.
Thus, 26 deputies are applying to the Constitutional Court with regard to the draft amendments to the Constitution. Pursuant to point 2 of part 1 of Article 169 of the Constitution, at least one fifth of the total number of deputies of the National Assembly may apply to the Constitutional Court, in the cases prescribed by points 1, 4 and 6 of Article 168 of the Constitution.
The National Assembly of Armenia has 132 deputies, one fifth of which is 26.4. The authorities claim that at least 27 votes are required to apply to the Constitutional Court.
During a conversation with Armenian News-NEWS.am, deputy of the Prosperous Armenia faction Mikayel Melkumyan touched upon applying to the Constitutional Court and the disagreements in regard to the votes and asked the following: “Is 26.4 26 or 27?”
“During a recent discussion held by one of the parliament’s standing committees, there was a discussion on whether .4 is rounded up or down. There is no legal statement stating whether it is 26.4 or not. In any case, 26.4 is more like 26 than 27,” Mikayel Melkumyan said.
Armenian News-NEWS.am also asked the deputy if the Constitutional Court can accept the faction’s application for proceedings when the draft amendments to the Constitution enter into force after midnight, to which Mikayelyan said the Constitutional Court is a state institution and must continue to operate.
When the National Assembly adopted a decision stating that the draft amendments to the Constitution won’t be forwarded to the Constitutional Court because they concern the composition of the Constitutional Court and there is a conflict of interest and adopted the amendments in the second, final reading on June 22, Prosperous Armenia Party declared that it is launching a petition to collect signatures of one fifth of the deputies of the National Assembly to apply to the Constitutional Court in regard to constitutionality of the decision adopted by the parliament. Prosperous Armenia Party asked the Bright Armenia faction “to join the initiative “to protect legal security and prevent overthrow of the constitutional order in the country”. Today, the Bright Armenia faction declared that it will apply to the Constitutional Court only after examination of the application of Robert Kocharyan.
