Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly Alen Simonyan on Tuesday called the process to strip opposition lawmakers of their seats “very pleasant”.

“It’s envisaged by the law and cannot be avoided,” he told reporters in response to a question whether such a process has been initiated by MPs of the ruling Civil Contract party.

According to a draft decision posted on the parliament website on Monday, the Civil Contract faction has called a parliament sitting to debate the ouster of opposition MPs for absenteeism.

They plan to apply to the Constitutional Court to strip all deputies from the opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem factions of their seats, except for Ishkhan Zakaryan and Taguhi Tovmasyan.

The draft decision was removed from the parliament website shortly afterwards.