IMPEACHMENT BLOC REPRESENTATIVES LEAVE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT HALL AS A TOKEN OF PROTEST

Noyan Tapan
Jun 08 2007

YEREVAN, JUNE 8, NOYAN TAPAN. On June 7, the RA Constitutional Cour
hearing the case challanging the RA NA election results by proportional
system, rejected the petition of Nor Zhamanakner (New Times) and
Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) on making recalculation of the ballot
results at a number of electoral districts. It was recorded that the
Constitutional Court is not obliged to substantiate the application
instead of applicants, the applicant parties and representatives of
the bloc could apply to the electoral commissions with the demand of
recalculation, which, however, had not been done.

The Constitutional Court rejected a great number of other petitions
of Impeachment bloc, Hanrapetutiun (Republic), Nor Zhamanakner (New
Times) and Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law), bringing as a ground the
fact that the claimant side could get the necessary information for
substantiating its application. The Constitutional Court will pass
a resolution on the basis of the materials existing in the case,
including on the basis of the explanations of the claimant and
respondent sides.

Nikol Pashinian, representative of Impeachment bloc, declared that
the court resolutions on the petitions are the main rsolution of the
final resolution and that they consider their further participation
in the court senseless.

Then the representatives of the bloc and their co-thinkers left
the hall.

Garegin Azarian, Chairman of RA Central Electoral Commission, presented
an explanation on the corrections in the protocols of proceedings
of the ballot results of the electoral districts. In his words,
the existing misprints are the result of the wrong perception of the
provisions of the Electoral Code: as a result of the corrections, the
number of inaccuracies has increased by 1012 and the votes for RPA have
decreased by 30: the corrections were made by the electoral district
or constituency commissions and ratified with stamps. Nevertheless,
the Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission does not see any
basis for invalidating the results of the elections.

On June 7, the claimant side finished the interrogation stage of the
respondent side representatives that lasted about 2.5 working days: the
questions concerned the CEC powers, the legality of the registration
of the parties, the observance of the equality principle during the
electoral campaign, particularly by Serge Sargsian, RA Prime Minister,
and, as the applicants believe, the use of official levers for the
purpose of electoral campaign and other subjects.

During the interrogation it was mentioned that, according to the
reference presented by the government 4903 RA citizens were registered
in RA foreign consulates in the period of the elections. It should
be reminded that on the first day of the examination of the cast, in
the explanation of N. Pashinian, representative of Impeachment bloc,
the fact of 700 thousand RA citizens’ being in foreign countries was
mentioned by approximate calculations.

At the June 8 sitting the claimant and respondent sides will come up
with closing speeches.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress