The Counting Commission formed by the decision of the General Assembly of Judges dated 31.07.2020 has issued a statement:
“A number of elections were on the agenda of the regular General Meeting of the RA judges held on 31 July, in particular, according to the provisions of Article 74, Part 5, Articles 75-77 of the Judicial Code of the Republic of Armenia, the General Assembly of Judges should to elect a candidate for a member of the Constitutional Court, a member of the Supreme Judicial Council, and to form the Committees on Ethics and Disciplinary Issues, Performance Evaluation Commission of Judges, and Training Commission of the General Assembly of Judges.
Following the announcement of the results, there were reports in the press that 10 ballots more than the number of registered judges were registered in one of the ballot boxes during the election at the General Assembly of Judges.
First of all, it should be noted that according to Article 74, Part 12 of the Judicial Code of the Republic of Armenia, as well as according to Clause 48 of the Procedure of the General Assembly of Judges, for the purpose of organizing the voting in the General Assembly of Judges, counting the votes and summarizing the voting results, the General Assembly of Judges establishes a Counting Commission, after which the chairman of the Counting Commission after summarizing the voting results, announces the results. The addressee of the “accusations” in fact is, the Counting Commission.
We consider it necessary to clarify that the existence of 10 more ballots was registered by the Counting Commission.
Moreover, more than 10 ballots were found and registered not during the election of a candidate for the vacant position of a judge of the Constitutional Court, as reported in the press, but during the election of a judge member of the Supreme Judicial Council.
In particular, the Counting Commission formed by the decision of the General Assembly of Judges on 31.07.2020 with the following composition:
President: Liza Grigoryan,
Members: Karen Zarikyan,
Arthur Avagyan,
Narine Hovakimyan,
Anahit Tumanyan,
As a result of summarizing the results of the voting for the candidate for judge of the Constitutional Court, the following was registered:
Number of registered participants: 194,
Total number of ballots: 194 Number of invalid ballots: 11,
Number of ballots cast for Yervand Khundkaryan: 145,
Number of ballots cast for Arman Kurekhyan: 38.
The same counting commission, as a result of summarizing the results of the Supreme Judicial Council, registered the following:
Number of registered participants: 194,
Total number of ballots: 204,
Number of invalid ballots: 3,
Number of ballots voted for Suren Antonyan: 83,
Number of ballots cast for Gor Hakobyan: 21,
Number of ballots cast for StepanMikaelyan: 97.
Summing up the results of the voting, the Counting Commission noted that the number of ballots was more by 10 copies than the number of registered in the list of participants, but it did not affect the voting results, as the difference between the votes cast for the candidate with the most votes was more than 10. :
As a result, Stepan Mikaelyan is considered elected.
The protocol was signed by the chairwoman of the Counting Commission and all the members.
We consider it necessary to point out that clauses 48-50 of the order of activity of the General Assembly of Judges regulate the issues related to the formation of the functions of the Counting Commission, and clauses 59-71 of the same procedure regulate the issues related to the recount of voting results and summarizing, clause 61 of the Procedure of the General Assembly of Judges stipulates that candidates have the right to request a recount of results.
We note that so far no request has been made by any of the candidates to conduct a recount, in fact, everyone has taken the result registered by the Counting Commission as a basis.”
