IS THERE ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN CC DECISION AND NA?
A1+
[05:38 pm] 09 November, 2006
Two days ago the Constitutional Court (CC) upheld the claim of the
Opposition and found the involvement of judges in the electoral
commissions anti-constitutional.
"Provided the CC didn’t make such a decision, the provision might
be omitted from the Electoral Code as a result of the Constitutional
amendments," says NA Speaker Tigran Torosyan while commenting on the
CC decision.
Prior to answering the question of A1+, Mr. Torosyan noted that the
Constitutional amendments were of great importance in the political
sphere and were mainly in favour of the Opposition representatives
who were against the amendments. "The Opposition could appeal to
the CC and make it turn down the proposal of judges’ involvement,"
added Mr. Torosyan.
The NA Speaker doesn’t see any reason for rejecting judges’ involvement
in the electoral commissions as "there a lot of countries where
judges are involved in the electoral commissions and this arouses
no problems. As for Armenia, there are two factors mingling with the
endorsement of the proposal. There are two contradicting provisions in
the acting EC. One of them stipulated that the electoral commission
is a state institution whereas according to the other provision it
is an independent free body."
I see a contradiction in this connection which must be taken into
consideration. Besides, provided electoral commissions are state
bodies, contradictions arouse in connection with Article 98 of the
Constitution as it states that judges mustn’t hold other posts in
state bodies."
The NA Speaker informed A1+ that the amendments to the EC, endorsed
during the first hearing, will be put to the second hearing in
December.