Armenia’s Constitutional Court “saved” the current authorities from charges and punishment in the future by ruling that Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code does not comply with the Constitution and is invalid, lawyer Lusine Sahakyan said on Saturday.
"By declaring Article 300․1 of Armenia’s Criminal Code unconstitutional and invalid, the Constitutional Court saved the incumbent authorities from charges and punishment under that article in the future,” she wrote on Facebook.
“Thus, there is nothing extraordinary about the fact that those who became judges of the Constitutional Court as a result of an unconstitutional process also seem to have voted in favor,” Sahakyan added.
The ruling issued by the top court on Friday says that Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code concerning the “overthrowing the constitutional order”, under which former President Robert Kocharyan and three other former senior officials are being prosecuted, runs counter to Articles 78 and 79 of the Constitution. The articles deal with the principles of proportionality and certainty.
Robert Kocharyan and his lawyers asked the high court to determine the constitutionality of Article 300.1 back in 2019. The defense team of the former president argued, among other things, that the clause was added to the Criminal Code in 2009 and cannot be used retroactively against him.
