On September 16, the “My Step” faction of the National Assembly decided to start the process of terminating the powers of the member of the Constitutional Court Hrayr Tovmasyan.
The process of terminating the powers of a judge of the Constitutional Court shall be governed by both the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the Constitutional Court and the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly.
The final decision is made by the Constitutional Court.
“In essence, the National Assembly raises the issue of termination of the powers of a judge of the CC before the Constitutional Court and the law provides the grounds on which such an application may be submitted to the National Assembly. One of the grounds is the basis for a substantial disciplinary violation,” lawyer Genya Petrosyan says.
A material disciplinary offense may be characterized as an act that discredits the authority of the Constitutional Court or is incompatible with the position of a judge of the Constitutional Court.
On September 19, the draft of the “My Step” faction on the termination of the powers of the President of the Constitutional Court Hrayr Tovmasyan was published on the official website of the National Assembly.
The draft has 4 bases.
“The first was that Hrayr Tovmasyan had a biased attitude towards Aram Orbelyan, the representative of the applicant Robert Kocharyan, which was conditioned by the fact of personal links between them,” Genya Petrosyan notes.
The second ground was about affiliation with the Republican Party of Armenia. In particular, it was noted that Robert Kocharyan and the party leader Serzh Sargsyan in the March 1 case have overlapping interests.
“The third ground relates to the fact that Hrayr Tovmasyan himself did not raise the issue of the impossibility to participate in the proceedings and did not raise them at the Constitutional Court and participated in the decision in this case,” the lawyer notes.
One of the reasons is that Hrayr Tovmasyan has publicly commented on the events of March 1-2, 2008, as well as the trial, on various occasions and at different times.
The purpose of the draft, according to the “My Step” faction, is to strengthen trust in the Constitutional Court and to ensure transparency of court proceedings.
Genya Petrosyan says the basics mentioned in the draft are pretty convincing; “The similes are, in my opinion, pretty convincing and well-reasoned. The bottom line is that an impartial observer may be objectively questioned about the fairness of Judge Hrayr Tovmasyan’s participation in the investigation of the case and the decision-making stage. The ECtHR’s positions have been thoroughly analyzed, our legislative arrangements are clear on this point, and they do not allow us to participate in the investigation in such circumstances.”
Yevgenya Hambardzumyan
