Constitutional reforms: Armenian authorities’ failure to apply to Venice Commission 'signals negative scenarios' - lawyer  

Hripsime Hovhannisyan

The Armenian authorities’ failure to apply to the Venice Commission amid their current constitutional reforms does not promise a positive scenario in the long run, an expert in constitutional law said today, citing the organization’s repeated calls for seeking its advisory opinion.

“After 1995 - and ever since our full membership in the Council of Europe in 2003 - all the [draft] constitutional reforms were submitted to the Venice Commission, some even several times,” Aram Vardevonyan told Tert.am, considering the process absolutely necessary.

“I don’t think Armenia's move to apply to the Venice Commission - as a Council of Europe member state – came absolutely quite by chance. Any provision in the Constitution must be in line with the corresponding documents of the Council of Europe, including the European Convention on Human Rights,” he noted.  

Emphasizing the Commission’s role as a constituent part of the Council (like the European Court of Human Rights), the lawyer also warned of the undesired scenarios stemming from the failure to apply to the advisory body. “Such a move may entail a serious problem in terms of the Council of Europe's fundamental principles,” Vardevanyan said.

The lawyer cited, particularly, the precedents of Bulgaria and Poland where he said similar judiciary reforms were declared illegitimate. ″In the case of Poland, the changes applied to the Cassation Court, and the judges retired on a non-voluntary basis. As a result of the PACE’s tough response, however, they all  were returned to work,″ he added.

Vardevanyan said he also thinks that the full-fledged functioning of the Constitutional Court could be the best way out under the current conditions. “There is such a concept in the theory of law: even if you are striving for a very rightous and just objective but pursuing wrong methodologies to achieve that, the outcome will never be positive. So whenever you are breaching the letter and spirit of the Constitution, the principle of a rule of law state and the supremacy of the Constitution, never expect a positive feedback,” he said, stressing the urgency of applying to the Constitutional Court to receive an advisory opinion also on that.