I Have Close Relations with Vahe Grigoryan. The Speaker of Parliament on Vahe Grigoryan

As the Speaker of the National Assembly, I accept all the candidates for the Constitutional Court judge proposed by the President of the Republic. This was stated today during a conversation with reporters in the National Assembly by Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan, commenting on the fact that the President of Armenia has nominated lawyer Vahe Grigoryan as a candidate for the Constitutional Court judge position, who, according to reliable information, the ruling party wishes to see in this role.

To the question of how he assesses that the National Assembly has rejected the candidates for the Constitutional Court judge four times in the past year, he replied, “Candidates are proposed by those people and bodies that have the authority to do so, and they are elected by those people and bodies that have the authority to elect. Those bodies can choose, or they may not choose. Until now, they have not been elected; now we will see, perhaps they will not choose now, perhaps they will.”

Regarding Vahe Grigoryan specifically, the Speaker stated, “I have close relations with Vahe Grigoryan, and this was formed many years ago when we were involved in various movements for protest under different weather conditions, whether large or small. We ended up in police stations where various human rights defenders, including Vahe Grigoryan, were with us. I think it is normal that having got acquainted in those years and circumstances, we have been able to form close relationships.”

He added that there is also a significant role played by the fact that regarding the value system, the vision for the country’s development, and the country’s dream, there are quite a few commonalities. “Honestly, I have a very positive attitude towards this nomination. What the faction's attitude will be, what the results of the election will be, will become clear soon,” he said.

In response to the observation that Taron Simonyan, a deputy from the “Enlightened Armenia” party, stated that the nomination of Vahe Grigoryan is an illegal step, as the legislation indicates that the President of Armenia cannot propose the same candidate more than once, Ararat Mirzoyan said, “Let’s leave arbitrary interpretations aside. This is a new candidacy; there is no problem here. This topic has been discussed publicly with lawyers many times. Right now, I don't see any point in rewriting all the arguments of the lawyers word for word.”