Armenian National Congress Issues Statement

The statement of the Armenian National Congress regarding the process of constitutional amendments.

On December 30, 2019, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made a decision to establish a commission aimed at preparing constitutional amendments. The decision includes plans to develop a package of constitutional amendments in accordance with the judicial and legal reforms strategy approved by the government of Armenia on October 10, 2019.

In this regard, the Congress finds it necessary to highlight the following:

1. The current Constitution was developed to perpetuate the power of the previous regime and its leader, having been "adopted" through the falsification of 500,000 votes, and was rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Armenian citizens based on the actual voting results; therefore, it lacks legitimacy, and the events surrounding it have dealt a significant blow to the foundations of Armenian statehood, the consequences of which have not yet been eradicated. It also contains numerous shortcomings that pose risks to the normal functioning of the state. The Congress addressed all of these issues in detail in 2015 by organizing a NO campaign.

2. It is important to note that the parliamentary governance model has not been accepted by the people of Armenia. The parliamentary system has led many democratic countries in the world to chronic political crises (Spain, Israel, Italy, Belgium, etc., similar to France before adopting a semi-presidential system in 1959). In the long term, it will also create permanent political crises in Armenia, leading to the oligarchization of the political system and the flourishing of political corruption.

3. Therefore, the primary task of the constitutional amendments should be to promptly restore the semi-presidential (presidential-parliamentary) governance model, which will ensure political stability, security, and the potential for reforming the political and economic system. On the other hand, this will put an end to the practice of arbitrary changes to the constitutional governance model and reaffirm the vital concept of the stability of the governance constitutional model.

4. However, judging by the aforementioned strategy of the government, the proposed package of constitutional amendments will solve not strategic but tactical issues, particularly related to overcoming the crisis surrounding the Constitutional Court, transitioning the police and NSS to civilian governance, and similar problems.

5. Although resolving the above-mentioned issues is important, if the proposed package of constitutional amendments is limited only to correcting the obvious shortcomings of the current constitutional governance model, it will overlook many issues arising from the falsified referendum of 2015, specifically the transition to a parliamentary system, which lacks justification and violates the constitutional traditions of the country. Moreover, such an approach poses a risk of retroactively legitimizing the illegal rejection of the will of the Armenian people in the 2015 referendum.

6. The establishment of the constitutional commission should be preceded by extensive public consultations and discussions involving political forces and civil society organizations, which should lead to the formation of approaches to the concept of constitutional amendments, most importantly, regarding the conscious and legitimate acceptance of the governance model by the public.