Authorities' de-legitimization: Outcomes identified  

Armen Kareyan

With a vote of 75 to 34,  the National Assembly adopted in the second and final reading on December 11 the draft law proposing an early retirement scheme for members of the Constitutional Court.  Strikingly enough, the parliamentary opposition had earlier announced its plans to vote against the measure. The bill, which envisages pensions for Constitutional Court judges (including Hrayr Tovmasyan, its chairman) in a sum equivalent to their salaries – provicded that they resign until January 31, 2020 (the authorities of ″new″ Armenia are ready, to that effect, to  allocate an equivalent of over €1.6 million from the State Budget) – pursues, as a matter of fact, one single objective, i.e. – to satisfy Nikol Pashinyan's totalitarian ambitions.  

It is those very same people in the government that are now making attempts to present this disgrace - targeted exclusively at satisfying the authorities' political ambitions - as the only lifebuoy ring, the only effort towards overcoming the obstacles to the country’s development, a selfless attempt to realize the nation’s yearnings and goals and, last but not least, a struggle against the evil. That is to say, on their path towards annihilating the Constitutional Court – or at least turning it into their puppy toy - the authorities are trying to legitimize their own steps, referring immediately to the public and manipulating the society.

The International Republican Institute (IRI) has published the outcomes of a survey conducted in Armenia, recording, admittedly, a rather striking picture.

The IRI polls, aiming to identify the Armenian society’s trust in the government’s work, the justice sector and socio-economic reforms, reveal that the Constitutional Court enjoys the highest level of confidence (40%) among the law enforcement institutions in Armenia. The Prosector General’s Office (38%) comes next followed by judges (36%).

The fact is notably striking indeed, especially against the backdrop of the authorities’ baseless propaganda - whose main feature, as we know, are the false allegations insisting on an insufficent level of trust in the Constitutional Court. The IRI studies, actually, totally refute the government-backed fake theses while bringing Pashinyan and his team face to face with a bare fact.

And the fact is that the authorities' spareless counterpropaganda – against Hrayr Tovmasyan and the institution led by him – has proven inefficient, as a matter of fact. The Constitutional Court is not in the least treated as a malicous impediment to Armenia's ″bright future″; conversly, it enjoys an absolute trust by a large part of our society.

The authorities have, apparently, a reason for a real concern -  not only because they are at the threshold of a de-facto de-legitimization (pushing through a bill at the National Assembly relying solely on one's own resources is no way to secure legitimization) but also, more importantly, thanks to the fact that the Armenian public hasn't actually lost its capacity to think independently and to distinguish things in between, depending solely on its innate talent.  That may potentially undermine the authorities' plan, turning out a real problem impossible to solve …

Meantime, the expression of such a positive public attitude to the CC poses risks to the authorities also in the sense that it may virtually reflect, in an in-depth way, the true level of trust to Nikol Pashinyan and his government.

What that essentially implies is that the new authorities will have to “think twice before they act” – when plotting new plans against the CC or realizing the existing ones – to avoid the worst-case scenario while correctig minutiae.

The attempts to blame his own failures on the Constitutional Court will lay bare Nikol Pashinyan's total insolvency, leading to his government’s total downfall.