Constitutional Amendment Draft to be Discussed in Phases

Starting today, the professional commission for constitutional reforms is initiating public discussions. Established by the Prime Minister's decree on February 12, the commission has been working on the draft of constitutional amendments for the past months. Although the concept is not yet ready and is scheduled to be presented in December, "Haykakan Zhamanak" learned that the commission has decided to commence public discussions earlier, despite the initial timeline suggesting September.

We have been informed that the reason for this shift is the state of emergency due to the coronavirus situation, and the fact that the public discussions will take place online. This will naturally create additional challenges, requiring more time than expected for public discourse. Furthermore, as discussed within the authorities, this draft is supposed to be one of the most widely debated.

Thus, "Haykakan Zhamanak" has learned that today, representatives from civil society organizations that are members of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum's national platform will participate in the online public discussion. However, we also learned that this will be a more generalized discussion, and the members of the professional commission will simply listen to the opinions of civil society representatives and present the work completed and the changes expected.

Following these general discussions, separate discussions with various circles are anticipated. At that point, discussions will be head-to-head, and it is possible that the final draft will differ from the initial conception. Nevertheless, at this stage, the members of the professional commission have reached a consensus that the stable majority provision and the rating system should be eliminated, although there will be no changes to the governance system.

You can read the full article in today's issue of the newspaper.