Today, the Office of the Third President of the Republic of Armenia sent an official letter to the Chairman of the RA NA Standing Committee on Defense and Security Andranik Kocharyan, in response to his letter to the third President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan sent on 6 April, 2020. The letter, signed by the head of the office, states that despite the fact that the third President of the Republic of Armenia is not legally obliged to attend the hearings of the commission, including the pursuant to the RA Constitutional Law “Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly”, President Serzh Sargsyan has no problems for presenting details on the April 2016 military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan, neither in the commission nor in any other format. Moreover, so far Serzh Sargsyan has made numerous public statements about these large-scale military operations: speeches, interviews, consultations with participation of the president, meetings, sittings, in which quite a detailed reference was made to those events.
The office of the 3rd President of the Republic of Armenia informs.
At the same time, the official response emphasized that according to Part 1 of Article 6 of the RA Constitution, “State and local self-government bodies and officials shall be entitled to perform only such actions for which they are authorized under the Constitution or laws,” while Andranik Kocharyan’s request to submit written justifications in case of rejection of the invitation sent to the third President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan in the above-mentioned letter does not issue from the framework of authority reserved to the Commission by the Constitution and laws. Therefore, it was suggested to the mentioned official to act only within his powers from now on.
The Office of the Third President of the Republic of Armenia also asked to clarify whether the closed session of the commission is recorded, transcribed and properly archived or not? And informs that President Sargsyan considers it expedient to visit a special commission of inquiry set up to investigate the circumstances of the April 2016 hostilities after the end of the state of emergency declared by the decision of the Government of the Republic of Armenia in the whole territory of the Republic of Armenia, provided that one copy of the recording will be provided to the third President of the Republic of Armenia after the sitting, if the recording of the sitting is envisaged by the procedure of the sitting, otherwise give the opportunity to record. .
“Although it is confusing that in the situation caused by the pandemic, the NA committee has decided to hold a sitting, however, even if the RA Government makes a decision to extend the state of emergency, nevertheless the third President of the Republic of Armenia is ready to visit the committee on 16 April at 14:00,” the response of the Office of the Third President of the Republic of Armenia reads.
