The Public Must be Explained Why Republic of Armenia is Represented by the Former Official Gagik Harutyunyan and Vardan Poghosyan

During the interview to factor.am Haykuhi Harutyunyan, the President of the Protection of Rights without Borders NGO, while referring to the assessments, that the Venice Commission considers it artificial the differentiation of the “member”-“judge” of Constitution Court wording in the protocol of the plenary session of the Venice Commission published by the “Path of Law” NGO, as well as is concerned by the announcement of Vahe Grigoryan, mentioned that the in originial document the Venice Commission expresses concerns only in regards, that such announcements can be considered as intervention to the activities of the Constitution Court.

According to her, the RA citizen shall be informed who made the question of vetting, Constitution Court crisis a subject for Venice Commission discussion. “The agenda of the session is presented upon the recommendation of the member states representatives. The information was presented by the member, who participated in it. It is not persuasive, that it’s the opinion of Vardan Poghosyan” – mentioned the human rights defender, adding that she wants a clarification from the RA authorities in this regard.

“I don’t see any necessity to defend Vardan Poghosyan” – mentioned the human rights defender while referring to the announcement of Vladimir Vardanyan, the Head of State Legal Issues of the RA National Assembly, stating that it is not the opinion of Vladimir Vardanyan, but the protocol of the Commission.

No state agency, including also the National Assembly has not issued an opinion on the crisis of the Constitution Court: the members of the Parliament are in vacation. To the question whether it is negligence towards the Constitution Court, Harutyunyan responded: “I think it would be more reasonable to use the term inaction instead of negligence which are not in a line with the approaches of the judicial reforms. I evaluated this as improper evaluation. It is not good for the post revolution authorities to justice their inaction being in a vacation”.

According to the human rights defender, the public needs a clarification, why Gagik Harutyunyan and Vardan Poghosyan, the previous authorities, represented the Republic of Armenia in Venice Commission. “Why the members are not replaced” – a question arises.

The current situation over the Venice Commission activities is a result of the inaction of the current authorities.

It is clear from the published document, that the RA Authorities refused the vetting procedure, which was previously announced by the RA Prime Minister, rather referring to it as judicial reforms. Haykuhi Harutyunyan evaluated it as suspicious, mentioning that, vetting is presented in the official website of the RA Ministry of Justice as a tool for transitional justice. “If there is a change in approaches, it shall be explained why, since such work style is not accepted by the post revolution authorities”.

Source factor.am