It seemed no one had forgotten about the decision of the RA Constitutional Court concerning the presidential elections of 2003, where the Constitutional Court made a decision to organize a referendum of confidence, which didn’t take place later. But later it turned out that these were all just assumptions.
Of course many people didn’t understand that the purpose of such a decision by the Constitutional Court (CC) was to stop the opposition from organizing rallies, which were getting stronger and could reach a maximum point. People thought that the Constitutional Court hade made a good decision, but later we saw that it forgot about its own decision, while the Constitutional Court has to take care of its own decisions.
On Thursday the Constitutional Court made a decision concerning the citizens left out of their own apartments for the purpose of building multi-story houses there. Taking into account applaud of people in the hall we may assume that they didn’t understand that this was a trick being played by the Constitutional Court to legalize the illegal activities of the authorities. In both cases the approach of the CC is the same. This means that the authorities, with the help of the CC, did their best to stop the citizens from applying to the Euro Court connected with this issue.
According to head of the republican faction, Galust Sahakyan, there are neither winners nor losers here. This means that neither the Government won, nor the ombudsman or citizens. According to Galust Sahakyan “there is an imperative requirement in the new Constitution saying that first of all, there must be legal provisions and corresponding laws, later conflicts should be solved on the basis of that law. This is the reason why the CC petitioned to adopt a corresponding law so as not to have any problems or misunderstanding in the future”.
But later Galust Sahakyan said that the decision of the CC was good for everyone and that it was an effort of all parties involved in that process. “I think this time the approach of the ombudsman’s institution is better and I think it will make people believe in it again. As for the whole process, I think both the Government, president and the CC played major roles” said Sahakyan and added that we shouldn’t look for winners or losers in such things.
We asked Galust Sahakyan whether violators had to be punished or not on the basis of the CC decision, which stated that there had been violations of law. He said no. Galust Sahakyan says that what was done was done for the purpose of adding one more page to our history and is only of historical significance. “Of course the decision of the CC wrote about violations too, but they didn’t mean that the Government violated the law itself, but rather that the Government and parliament had to crate certain legal background on the basis of the existing Constitution so as not to have flaws in our law later. We didn’t have that kind of law, but had history, which the CC couldn’t use when making a decision”, said Galust Sahakyan.
To our point saying that Armenia had such a law regulating that field and the decision of the CC was to make the Government to fit their illegal activities with the requirements of the Constitution, G. Sahakyan answered, “Of course the CC saw that there had been contradictions with the Constitution, that is why they spoke about both working out those shortcomings and creating certain legal background”.
According to member of NA “National Unity” faction Aghasi Arshakyan, if “this decision of the CC does not proceed in a duly manner and does not have any results, it will be just a piece of paper without any legal meaning”. “I hope it will have positive results. And if it doesn’t bring to any positive developments like the decision of the CC concerning the presidential elections of 2003, this decision will not have any legal meaning for people and it will be clear already that the purpose of this decision was only to make people calm down”, said Aghasi Arshakyan. By giving positive results Aghasi Arshakyan means punishing violators. “The officials that took the shelters of those people without any compensation have to be punished. If these problems are not solved we must confess that the CC doesn’t play its role and is not an important institution for us. And in this case we will have to ask ourselves whether we need the CC or not”, says Aghasi Arshakyan. Regarding the announcements of people that the CC and Armen Harutyunyan helped them Aghasi Arshakyan said, “Alas our people always trust in these authorities and are always cheated. As we have already experienced such things, we should simply wait”. A. Arshakyan said that he was waiting to see whether this decision would have positive results or not and added that he didn’t trust in the authorities and the only thing he believed in was change of authorities.