Our Country Needs a New Constitution: Nikol Pashinyan

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan congratulated citizens on Constitution Day via his Facebook page. "Dear people, proud citizens of the Republic of Armenia. Today, we celebrate Constitution Day in Armenia, and I congratulate us all on this occasion. However, we must sincerely acknowledge that, as much as we all understand the importance of the Constitution in the establishment of the state and the regulation of public and state relations, there is a sense of incompleteness, a lack of fullness in this officially celebrated day.

In the history of the Third Republic of Armenia, it has been officially recorded three times that the people have adopted a Constitution or constitutional amendments through a referendum. Yet, the results of none of those referendums have been considered trustworthy by the public. The citizens of Armenia have not regarded the decision to adopt or amend the Constitution as their own, nor have they accepted the Constitution adopted as a result of those decisions as theirs.

This is the greatest systemic flaw in our state structure because the Constitution must effectively represent an agreement among citizens about citizen-citizen and state-citizen relations. Hence, the state order must stem from the will of the citizens, and citizens' expression of their will must be at the core of the state order, which should become a factor guaranteeing the integrity of the state, a result of the responsibility taken on by the citizens for the fate of the state—a manifestation of citizens' will to exist as a state.

Recent events have led me to the conclusion that often, citizens of Armenia do not regard the state order as their own; they do not see an organic connection between that order and their will. And despite my position that frequent amendments to the Constitution subject the state system to unnecessary stress, and constant changes to the Constitution lead to uncertainties, the awareness of the circumstances mentioned in the previous paragraph has led me to the conclusion that our country needs a new Constitution, which will establish a state order based on the will of the citizens and stemming from the citizens' will in Armenia.

Therefore, the new Constitution should not be created based on the taste and preferences of a specific individual, individuals, political force, or group. It should not aim to ensure the reproduction of any power. Rather, it should solve the strategic issue of reinforcing the power of the people, having a state order derived from the people's will, and expressing the citizens' will to exist as a state.

This process has begun, and I hope that the drafting of the new Constitution will undergo as broad public discussion as possible, and that it will be adopted through the free expression of will of the people in a referendum set for 2021. I wish us all success in this important endeavor."