YEREVAN. – The Constitutional Court will consider in writing the matter—based on the petitions by second President Robert Kocharyan and the Yerevan court of first instance—of constitutionality of Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code of Armenia.
As reported earlier, Constitutional Court Judges Arevik Petrosyan and Hrayr Tovmasyan had motioned to examine the matter verbally, taking into account the public resonance of this matter.
But Constitutional Court President Arman Dilanyan, and Judges Yervand Khundkaryan and Edgar Shatiryan opposed the motion.
Judge Petrosyan, presenting the motion, made reference to a point in the Rules of Procedure of the Constitutional Court, according to which, if necessary, it is possible to switch to a verbal procedure at any phase of a case examination, and the Constitutional Court had such a practice when conducting a vberbal examination of the ombudsman's petition.
But the president of the Constitutional Court, speaking against Judges Petrosyan and Tovmasyan's aforesaid motion, stated: "In the recollection of our society, as well as in the legal community, all the ideas about the impartiality and unbiasedness of the Constitutional Court have been formed based exclusively on the content of the decisions made by the Constitutional Court now."
Dilanyan added that in case of switching to the verbal procedure, the examination of this matter will be unnecessarily delayed.
As reported earlier, on July 18, 2019, the Constitutional Court had decided to suspend the proceedings to determine this matter, and petitioned to the European Court of Human Rights and the Venice Commission for respective opinions.
A response was received from the aforementioned bodies in the summer of 2020. According to the Venice Commission, there is no single approach in international practice to the wording of crimes against the constitutional order; accordingly, in some countries the respective references refer to the Constitution as a whole, whereas in others just a reference is made to the need to maintain the constitutional order—but without defining it.
A session of the Constitutional Court was set for July 7, 2020. But the National Assembly (NA) has submitted a petition to the court, asking it to push back this examination, noting that NA needed to get familiarized with the opinion of the Venice Commission.
