A criminal case will be instituted against Hrayr Tovmasyan after an amendment to the law, as reported Politik.am.
Politik.am states that on June 20, 2019, Vahe Grigoryan, who was elected judge of the Constitutional Court, declared in the National Assembly that he will be entering the Constitutional Court as President of the Court. Although Vahe Grigoryan made an ardent statement, the legal community didn’t accept it. Moreover, many condemned his anti-constitutional statement. In the end, Vahe Grigoryan had to refuse to fulfill his promise and entered the Constitutional Court as a judge.
It’s clear that Vahe Grigoryan had planned this with the political authorities, and the goal was to do away with President of the Constitutional Court Hrayr Tovmasyan, who is an undesired person for the authorities. After Vahe Grigoryan’s scenario failed, the authorities implemented another tactic, that is, they tried to neutralize Hrayr Tovmasyan through the law-enforcement system, but it seems that this also failed.
However, recently, Armenian Times Daily, which belongs to the Pashinyans, brought up the issue of the Constitutional Court once again. This time, the pro-government newspaper reminded that the Constitutional Court lacks a vice-president, in spite of the fact that the law envisages such a position. The response of the Constitutional Court clearly stated that there is no violation of the law and that the Court will either elect or not elect a vice-president, if there is a nominee.
The authorities’ plan was the following: they are trying to convice Hrayr Tovmasyan to turn judge of the Constitutional Court Vahe Grigoryan into his vice-president. After Vahe Grigoryan becomes vice-president, the National Assembly will already have adopted the bill on making amendments and supplements to the Constitutional Law of the Republic of Armenia “On the Constitutional Court”, which envisages suspending the powers of the judge of a Constitutional Court, if a criminal case is instituted against him or her.
Apparently, Tovmasyan hasn’t agreed with the idea of turning Vahe Grigoryan into vice-president, and this is the reason why the authorities have rushed to institute a criminal case. Yesterday the police issued a press release on the criminal case to be instituted, and this apparently refers to Hrayr Tovmasyan. According to the press release, the former high-ranking official of the Ministry of Justice deprived the heads of several offices of notary publics of their premises. In one of his recent interviews, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had talked about this and had specifically mentioned Hrayr Tovmasyan.
It is expected that Tovmasyan will specifically be involved in this case as an accused-on-trial when the amendment to the aforementioned law is implemented so that he is also deprived of the powers of judge/President of the Constitutional Court.