YEREVAN. – At Tuesday’s court hearing of the criminal case against Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan and several other former senior officials, the court postponed, until the decision of the Constitutional Court, the discussion of the motion by Karen Mezhlumyan, the lawyer for defendant—and the former Minister of Defense—Seyran Ohanyan, to drop the criminal case.

The Constitutional Court on Tuesday started considering—based on the petitions by ex-President Kocharyan and the Yerevan court of first instance—the constitutionality of Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code.

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.

Also, the aforesaid criminal case court hearing did not consider defense lawyer Aram Vardevanyan's motion to recuse Prosecutor Gevorg Baghdasaryan.