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    Hambik Zargarian
  • 2 years ago
    • Categories: 2022

Newspaper: Armenia parliament session to deprive opposition MPs of their mandate to be convened on July 14

NEWS.am
Armenia –
09:53, 13.07.2022

YEREVAN. – Hraparak daily of Armenia writes: The day before, an official document was publicized on the NA [(National Assembly)] website in the form of a draft, according to which the [ruling majority] CC [“Civil Contract”] Faction [of the NA] decided to call a session of the NA Council to petition to the Constitutional Court on the matter of depriving all deputies of the 2 opposition factions of [their parliamentary] mandates.

After a short time, the draft was removed from the website, but that matter is on the agenda of the ruling CC.

The NA Council will hold a session on the last day of the set period: on July 14.

It is also noteworthy that at the CC, according to some information, the session was scheduled for the evening hour. The NA Council will have a few hours to make a decision on the matter of depriving the opposition [MPs] of their [parliamentary] mandates.

The thing is that the parliament will go on vacation as of July 15, and [therefore] the MPs can no longer carry out activities and make decisions [after that].

 (…) the 33 [opposition] MPs, it turns out, have exceeded the permissible threshold of absences [from NA sessions], and on that basis they [i.e., the CC] will attempt to deprive them of their [parliamentary] mandates.

That is, [NA speaker] Alen Simonyan will call a session of the NA Council on July 14, inform the opposition [MPs] in writing, and the NA vacations will begin on July 15.

In an interview with us, Tatul Soghomonyan, head of the secretariat of the NA staff, said: "Yes, the NA president is obligated by the [NA] regulation to convene a session of the council within a week of receiving the notification. If the opposition MPs do not come [to this session], the matter is postponed for a week, then they [i.e., the CC MPs] can discuss [the matter] without them. But here, yes, there is a problem that I don't know how it will be interpreted. Parliament will go on vacation. This means that if the members of the NA council went on vacation, or if one—the NA president—remained, it is natural [that] they cannot do a council session because they are on vacation."

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