Armenia will need decades to 'overcome' aftermaths of constitutional referendum, says former high court official

The constitutional referendum, if conducted, will inevitably entail aftermaths which will take several years - if not decades - to be finally overcome, a former advisor to the top court's chairman said today, sharing his concerns over the authorities' plan to amend the country's constitution.

At the public debate entitled ″Constitutional Security: Challenges and Solutions″, Grigor Muradyan also called for efforts to reverse the ongoing processes to ″reinstate constitutional order″ in Armenia.

″Jurisprudence has suffered an eventual crush in our country. No more word can be said about the science of law unless there is a reversal to enable us to reinstate, without exaggeration, the constitutional order – and the elementary legal perception of a rule of law state,″ he said.

Muradyan attributed the proposed reforms to the incompatibility of a modern constitutitonal state with ″extreme populism″ (in either values or institutions).

″Many tie the violent encroachments upon the Constitutional Court to specific cases and certain problems.Of course, they can be be justified too, but extreme populism and a constitutional state are, as a matter of fact, incompatible. Civil solidarity, social justice and  liberalism underpinning modern constitutions are incompatible with extreme populism. The Constitutional Court, as the supreme guardian of the Constitution, must safeguard the constitutional set of values against any encroachment,″ he added.

The former advisor said he sees political segregation as the major threat underlying the kind of extreme populism. ″There isn’t any corrupt regime; there isn't any enemy at all, but that enemy must by all means exsist as populism will otherwise have zero chances of survival,” he added.

Commenting on the justifications presented by the authors of the reforms, Muradyan emphasized the imposibility of terminating ″irrepleceable judges″ unless they themselves resign or face conviction.

“I am the lead author of Chapter 7 of the Constitution [Courts and Supreme Judicial Council]. And while composing the chapter, it never occurred to me that it may be interpreted in such a way as to suggest that the irrepleceability of any CC judges may not be guaranteed in a rule of law state because that’s what they believe to be the people’s understanding. By changing the transitional provisions of the Constitution and thereby endangering the irreplaceability of judges, we question also the existence of a rule of law state. In other words, we overthrow the state governed by rule of law. Armenia has ceased to be a rule of law country given that the independence and irreplaceability of judges – and the security of their tenure – is among the major pillars of a rule of law state.”   

Muradyan noted that the seven judges' termination may potentially undermine the constitutional order given that the Constitutional Court will stop functioning for a certain time following their expected dismissal.