CC UPHOLDS THE CLAIM OF THE OPPOSITION

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[06:54 pm] 07 November, 2006

While discussing the amendments to the RA Electoral Code (EC),
it was decided to involve judges in the electoral commissions. The
decision was made when Arthur Baghdasaryan was still the Speaker of
the National Assembly.

The decision of the NA was motivated by the fact that the
representatives of the electoral commissions must be from the bodies
which enjoy popularity in Armenia.

Thus, we can assume that judges are popular in Armenia. It is
noteworthy that this provision of the EC contradicts the RA
Constitution adopted in 1995 and amended in 2005.

The NA (at the head of Tigran Torosyan) has again neglected Article
98 of the RA Constitution and didn’t change the provision according
to which judges are involved in the election commissions.

This gave the Constitutional Court (CC) a perfect ground to review
the compliance of the decision with the RA Constitution.

Today Shavarsh Kocharyan, Na deputy and Hrayr Tovmasyan, deputy
chairman of "Democracy" NGO, presented the interests of oppositional
26 deputies in the CC.

Hrayr Tovmasyan referred to the impossibility of engaging judges into
the electoral commissions.

First of all, he referred to Article 98 of the Constitution according
to which, "Neither the judge nor the member of the CC can be engaged
in business, hold posts in State or Local Self-Government bodies
and commercial organisations not connected with their ranks with
the exception of pedagogical and creative activity." He also stated
that the post of the member of the Precinct Electoral Commissions
has nothing to do with the judge’s jurisdictions. The Central and
Precinct Electoral Commissions are state bodies and the post of a
member of electoral commission is a state post.

Hrayr Tovmasyan is convinced that the involvement of judges into
the electoral commissions will destroy both the judicial and the
electoral systems.

The respondent was Ashot Khachatryan, head of the NA
legislative-analytical board.

Mr. Khachatryan agreed that there are certain obvious contradictions
between the CC and EC but illustrating the international practice
said that there are a lot of countries in the world where judges are
involved in the electoral commissions.

Gagik Haroutyunyan, Head of the RA CC, brought the example of Georgia.

Provided all judges are involved in the commissions they will, not
be enough as there are 179 acting judges in Armenia but they need
180 in the commissions.

CC found the involvement of judges into the electoral commissions
anti-constitutional.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress