YEREVAN. – We cannot legitimize or delegitimize anything through our actions. Ruben Melikyan, co-founder of the “Path of Law” NGO of Armenia, said this in a conversation with reporters today at the Central Electoral Commission, referring to their “No” campaign group for the upcoming referendum on constitutional amendments.

Asked if they legitimize the referendum process by participating in the process, he replied: “Legitimacy is not a legal but a political category. Our initiative group is made up exclusively of lawyers, of people who do professional work.

Without being politicians, we cannot fit into a system where there are issues of legitimacy existing or not. Our dilemma is not legitimacy-not legitimacy, but lawfulness-non-lawfulness. We continue to insist that the referendum process was not lawful, that the appointment of this referendum is unconstitutional both in content and in procedural terms.

We cannot legitimize or delegitimize anything through our actions. We believe that if a ‘no’ campaign side is not formed, this process can have even greater dangers for our statehood."

Melikyan noted that their initiative pursues two goals.

"First, giving the opportunity to our citizens who have something to say, to have a platform for all the options that exclude ‘yes,’" he explained. “Second, to give those citizens who have oversight mechanisms, as a proxy, as a member of the commission, to enable those oversight mechanisms to apply. We will talk about the legal side.”