On 19 April, the Constitutional Court issued a procedural decision on the basis of the application of at least one-fifth of the total number of deputies of the RA National Assembly, on resuming the Proceedings of the Case based on Article 80, Part 9 and Article 86, Part 2 of the RA Judicial Code on determining the issue of compliance with the Constitution and assigning the trial.

This refers to disputing the issue of the constitutionality of the Acting Chairman of the SJC Gagik Jhangiryan’s tenure, due to his age restriction.

The procedural decision of the Constitutional Court states:

«1. Based on the application of at least one-fifth of the total number of deputies of the RA National Assembly, essential for the resolution of the case based on Article 80, Part 9 and Article 86, Part 2 of the RA Judicial Code on determining the issue of compliance with the Constitution and assigning the trial on the basis of the need to find out relevant circumstances and based on Article 57 Part 1 of the Constitutional Law on the Constitutional Court, to resume the proceedings of this case.

2. To appoint the trial of this case on 6 May, 2022 at 11:00. ”

In a conversation with Iravaban.net, lawyer Aram Vardevanyan, a member of the “Armenia” Faction of the National Assembly, said that this is the second time that the decision of the Constitutional Court has been postponed and the grounds are not clear to him, as the application and the issue are a constitutional dispute, which is really obvious.

“If I try to be very brief, I think that people with the same status in the Supreme Judicial Council, that is, members, the members of the SJC, 5 of whom come from the judiciary, 5 from the community of legal scholars, cannot have a differentiated status.

As a reminder, these authorities initiated the constitutional “reform” of the judges of the Constitutional Court, on the very grounds that there are judges in the Constitutional Court who must serve 12 years and there are judges who, according to the 2005 edition of the Constitution, have to act longer ․ and to overcome that inequality they applied to constitutional reform. Now, how can there be inequality in the SJC and will it be constitutional? In other words, the 5 members of the SJC cannot hold office after reaching the age of 65, while the others can? This is the same classic inequality, “Aram Vardevanyan detailed.

It should be added that Article 80 of the RA Judicial Code defines the requirements for the members of the Supreme Judicial Council, and the part 9 of the article states: “A person to whom any of the restrictions on being appointed as a judge, prescribed by this Code, apply may not be elected as a member of the Supreme Judicial Council by the National Assembly.”

Article 86 defines the termination, imposed termination and suspension of powers of a member of the Supreme Judicial Council. Part 2 of the article states that the powers of a member of the Supreme Judicial Council shall automatically terminate according to the rules prescribed by Chapter 20 of this Code. Chapter 20 defines the cases of imposed and automatic termination of powers of a judge.