Touching upon the opinion of the President of Armenia that it might be right to have the President, the Supreme Judicial Council and the National Assembly elect the nine judges of the Constitutional Court, deputy of the Bright Armenia opposition faction of the National Assembly of Armenia Taron Simonyan said in the past, the two halves of the Constitutional Court were formed by the President and the National Assembly, and this was the logic until the constitutional amendments were made.

Currently, the Constitution states that the Government, the President and the General Assembly of Judges each nominate three judges of the Constitutional Court, but the National Assembly elects them. The President of Armenia recalled that he had nominated candidates three times, but the National Assembly hadn’t elected two of them.

“I understand the President’s concern. The constitutional amendments of 2015 led to the establishment of a system based on which one political force, which had a constitutional majority in parliament, formed everything. If you recall, the President of Armenia nominated two candidates, but the ruling parliamentary majority rejected them and made it clear that it will reject all candidates, even perfect candidates, if its desired candidate isn’t nominated. This is troubling. This is a systemic issue because the working relations in the National Assembly are provided for by the Constitution of 2015 in which the institution of constitutional majority is enshrined,” he said, adding that the President of Armenia expressed his opinion so that these solutions could be considered in the context of constitutional amendments.

“It seems as though the Professional Commission on Constitutional Reforms has already reached consensus on the idea that there must not be a constitutional majority in parliament,” the deputy of the Bright Armenia faction emphasized.