Representatives of the executive and legislative bodies have been talking about the need to make constitutional changes for a long time. On 5 November, the Ministry of Justice organized discussions on Constitutional reforms.

Iravaban.net has launched a series of interviews, with the objective to present the observations and opinions of experts in the field on the need for constitutional reform.

We talked about the topic with Advocate, Candidate of Juridical Sciences, Associate Professor Taron Simonyan.

Mr. Simonyan, the Ministry of Justice announced the initiation of the constitutional reform. To what extent its need is justified for it now?

– Depending on what we want to change, if we have to do it formally, this, of course, does not make sense, but if it needs to be done to solve the problems that have arisen as a result of the practical application of the Constitution, I will say this. To be honest, I do not see the political will to do exclusively professional work. Of course, the Ministry of Justice will do its best, will involve specialists, but the political force that assumes that responsibility, I think, is not so honest to implement the Constitutional amendments, in the sense that it stems from professional needs and requirements.

– What factors should be taken into account before the adoption of the new Constitution and what should be the process of implementation of constitutional reforms?

– Exclusively only specialists should be involved in the work, of course taking into account the public opinion, but since the Constitution itself must be the result of professional work, it must be beyond doubt. Moreover, today we need to raise the issues that have arisen in the state administration, for example, in the case of the introduction of a parliamentary system, what problems have arisen, how to solve them, if it is impossible to solve, then move to another system of government and etc. Only people in the scientific field should be able to give answers to this question. We can make changes chapter by chapter, so that people know what we are voting for.

– RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan once mentioned that during the crisis that arose in 2020, the parliamentary system of government showed its non-viability. Is there a need to change the way the country is governed? 

– There is no need to constantly change administration systems, it was wrong in 2015 as well, and it will be wrong if they do it again, regardless of what we bring instead. I can say for sure that in Armenia it is written only on paper – a parliamentary system of government, there is no parliamentary system here and our current Constitution has only formally declared the parliamentary system.

It is a system of super-centralized executive power in Armenia, you can call it super-prime ministerial, or something like that or I do not know what, but this is almost the same system of presidential government, only the name has changed.

– The Professional Committee on Constitutional Reforms (the activity of the Committee was suspended due to 2020 Karabakh war), on 22 August 2020, adopted the draft concept of decentralization of Constitutional Control and unification of the highest courts, in particular the establishment of the Supreme Court. To what extent is the decentralization of Constitutional control and the creation of the Supreme Court justified?

– We discussed that issue, in fact the commission had made a decision almost half to half. I represented a political faction that was in favor of that idea, but we were not in favor of the implementation methodology, and I voted against it, simply because there was not enough reasoning to dismantle the existing institutions and create a new one. In my opinion, the reason must be strong enough to destroy the old institutions. The problem is not in the model, it is in the correct use.

– Experts in the field of anti-corruption argue that providing constitutional status and guarantees of independence to anti-corruption bodies, such as the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption and the Anti-Corruption Committee, will increase the independence and efficiency of these institutions. What is your opinion on this issue?

– Of course, the expert opinion is important, there are specialists who will adhere to the opposite opinion. For me, the priority is not to give status and formally write, but to ensure the actual independence of these structures on earth. Today we still have Constitutional bodies that are not independent, but have the status of a Constitutional body, therefore, if we have to provide that status again, but they are not independent, then it does not make sense. It depends on the honesty of the political body, that is, the government wants it to be independent in reality or not. The anti-corruption body is independent if it is able to carry out the function assigned to it, and not to look up to what order the government of that day will issue.

Hasmik Sargsyan