YEREVAN. – The President of Armenia has signed a decree and set the referendum day on April 5; thereafter, the CEC shall draw up a timeframe, and all the processes that are required must follow according to it. Vladimir Vardanyan, majority My Step faction MP and chairman of the Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs of the National Assembly, said this in a conversation with journalists in parliament today.
As for sending the draft constitutional amendments to the Venice Commission, he said: “This issue needs further discussion; but you know our approach. We will continue to work very actively with the Venice Commission. (…). But as this particular draft is about an amendment in whose case the Venice Commission has little to say, I would not say a definitive answer to this question."
Vardanyan noted that there are questions about the constitutional amendments that need not be submitted to the Venice Commission for expertise.
"In my opinion, drafts of this kind should not be sent for international expertise," he said. “Further discussions on this issue are needed to understand what the approach is.
It was not the Venice Commission that called on to send the draft of the constitutional amendments to them, but rather it was the PACE co-rapporteurs' call to urgently discuss it."