Yesterday, after the RPA Council Meeting, speeches were about termination of Gagik Tsarukyan’s MP mandate. Aside of the political rhetoric, the procedure should be carried out exceptionally by the legal means. In this case 3 options are considered.
Termination of the authorities of the deputy is regulated under the RA Law on the “Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly.” According to this law, PAP leader can be removed in the following cases:
1. Article 12, Part 1 (a) provides that the Powers of the deputy may be terminated in conformity with Article 99.1 of this Article s/he has violated the requirement of Paragraph 1 of Article 65 of the Constitution that is he/she is engaged in entrepreneurial activities. Article 65 of the RA Constitution provides: “Deputies may not engage in entrepreneurial activities, hold a position in state or local self-government bodies or in commercial organizations, perform other paid work except for scientific, pedagogical or creative work.”
2. The second problem which President Serzh Sargsyan mentioned is the circumstance of not attending the NA session. In 2013-2014 Gagik Tsarukyan participated in only four of the 145 parliamentary sessions of the NA, which means that the issue of termination of his mandate should have been put to a vote, however it was not done. Specifically, the staff registers the deputies’ participation in the voting. The staff delivers a memo to Deputies on their absences from votes during the previous month or session in the first week of each month. This memo is also sent to the Deputies by e-mail. On the assumption of the fact that the issue of terminating his mandate was not considered we may assume that the deputy’s absence from voting was considered for a good reason. The Law provides other reasoning as well, “ The issue of the absence of the Deputies who have been absent from more than half of the voting for no good reason in the previous regular session is included in the agenda of the first four-day sitting of the regular session.” The issue of the absence of the Deputies who have been absent from more than half of the voting for no good reason in the previous regular session is included in the agenda of the first four-day sitting of the regular session. The Deputy is notified of the debate in a sitting of the National Assembly on the issue of his/her absences at least 7 days in advance. If the Deputy is absent, the debate on the issue is postponed twice each time for two weeks, after which it is considered at the next 4-day sitting regardless of his/her presence. Most probably the issue will be discussed on 19 March.
3. The last possible option may be that Gagik Tsarukyan’s mandate will be terminated based on Article 12 (i) – he has resigned in the manner prescribed by Article 13.
