Being the Devil's Advocate has been your only status: Simonyan to Tovmasyan

Hrayr Tovmasyan has shown disrespect towards the National Assembly by separating himself from the "Prosperous Armenia" faction. This was stated today by the Vice President of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, during his speech at the Assembly.

He noted that he views negatively Tovmasyan's absence during the voting on the draft decision to terminate the powers of the Constitutional Court member Hrayr Tovmasyan.

It should be reminded that the Assembly is discussing today the draft decision to terminate Tovmasyan's powers, while Hrayr Tovmasyan has stated that it is inconvenient for him to attend the discussion. Tovmasyan has only sought forgiveness from the members of the "Prosperous Armenia" faction for not allowing him to address questions during the discussion of the issue in the National Assembly meeting. It should be noted that the PPA had announced that they would not participate in the voting on the draft.

Vice President Alen Simonyan also referred to Tovmasyan's statement during an interview yesterday, where he mentioned that the process of terminating his powers is political and aims to neutralize the Constitutional Court as an obstacle on the path of political decisions, a body that can say stop to political decisions because they contradict the Constitution. Simonyan deemed this statement completely unacceptable, continuing: "Mr. Tovmasyan, you are not the Constitutional Court; you are merely one member of that court, do not attribute the entire court's function to yourself, do not attempt to make the other members, the judges, ‘accomplices’ with that."

He pointed out that it is also very important regarding the language of thinking, considering Hrayr Tovmasyan's assertion that the draft decision of the National Assembly is political: "You say it is a political decision. There has been a discussion around one issue these days, concerning which you published a decision that interested parties have fallen into, as we say in popular language, a coffee cup viewer to understand what you have written, what kind of political decision it is about," said Simonyan, referring to the scandalous decision of the Constitutional Court regarding the request of Robert Kocharyan's defenders, which declared Article 35 of the Criminal Code unconstitutional, concerning the grounds for discontinuing criminal prosecution.

In his speech, Alen Simonyan emphasized that the Constitutional Court, its judges, must enjoy the confidence of citizens, while according to Simonyan's assertion, Hrayr Tovmasyan does not enjoy such confidence: "You do not enjoy confidence because you have written the Constitution and the Electoral Code for Serzh Sargsyan to be able to be re-elected, to see who brings how many votes. The public does not trust and will not trust your decisions," said the Vice President of the Assembly, continuing: "You say there is no one who appointed me; yes, there isn’t, you were not appointed by him, you are appointed by the National Assembly. He is not here, and you are going to follow him. Being the Devil's Advocate has been your only status during the years of the previous government; you were the implementers of their projects, you were paid to provide legal formalization, you do not enjoy trust, Mr. Tovmasyan," concluded Vice President Alen Simonyan.