YEREVAN. – Had French President Nicolas Sarkozy signed earlier the bill that criminalizes the denial of genocides—including the Armenian Genocide—, there would have been another picture today, since in that case the matter of appealing the law would have come about, the opposition ARF Dashnaktsutyun Party’s Political Affairs Bureau and Armenian Cause Office Chief Giro Manoyan maintained during a press conference on Wednesday.

“Of course it would have been better for it to be signed earlier, but that would have meant that on another occasion the very same law’s constitutionality would have been contested at the very same Constitutional Council, but not within this time frame and in this way,” Manoyan added.      

He also recalled that the ballot was secret, and that there are people in the Constitutional Council who are members of pro-Turkish organizations, and former politicians who are lawyers and all through their lives they had expressed against this idea.