YEREVAN. – Hraparak daily of Armenia writes: "The authorities are looking forward to what response the Venice Commission will give to their inquiries regarding the cancellation of the [constitutional] referendum and to the CC [Constitutional Court] judges," the constitutional expert said.

Within how long will they respond? It depends on what they agreed on. In any case, I think that the Venice Commission will hardly give consent to the "aspirations" of the authorities towards the [CC] judges who have been in office for 12 years. The authorities will solve the issue of those 3 judges in the NA [National Assembly] by making constitutional amendments in a short time."

"All of them have been appointed during [First President Levon] Ter-Petrosyan's tenure. There is no judge appointed during [second President] Robert Kocharyan’s period. If the halls of power manage to dismiss them, the judges appointed during the time of [third President] Serzh Sargsyan and [serving PM] Nikol Pashinyan will remain."

And why do they want to remove those three? "They assume that the balance of the CC will change, the new ones will not elect [current CC president Hrayr] Tovmasyan [as CC president]. I'm sure they are wrong. Hrayr will be elected because the balance is in his favor again. Moreover, during the constitutional amendments in the NA, they must also adopt a provision that they must again elect the CC president. Otherwise, they have no right to elect Hrayr Tovmasyan again."

Do you think that they will not put pressure on the judges? "They will put pressure on everyone, but the result will be the same, especially since so much has changed."

Within what period of time can these constitutional amendments be? "The change of the law in the NA will take place quite quickly, with a special sitting, whereas the election of new judges will require a longer time."