Ruben Hayrapetyan Legally Received His Mandate: Revelation

The newspaper "Zhoghovurd" writes: "On August 5, the RA Prosecutor General's Office issued a statement announcing that the publications regarding the legality of Ruben Hayrapetyan, who is on the wanted list and holds citizenship of another country, being nominated as a candidate for the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, were sent to the Investigative Committee of Armenia under the instruction of Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan.

However, it turns out that this instruction came quite late and was not aware of the ongoing processes. The newspaper "Zhoghovurd" has obtained information that the Investigative Committee of Armenia had conducted studies related to this issue back in April 2020. The Committee sent specific inquiries to the Central Electoral Commission, Passport Department, and several other departments and received responses.

This raises the question: was the prosecutor overseeing Ruben Hayrapetyan's case unaware of the work being done by the committee? Or was he aware but preferred to show his superiors that his instruction was necessary to investigate the legality of Hayrapetyan's mandate acquisition?

It seems that the Prosecutor General's Office is, to put it mildly, out of touch and is casting dust in the eyes of the public, claiming to be seriously concerned about the legality of all processes. It should be noted that Ruben Hayrapetyan was first elected as a deputy on May 25, 2003, and about a month later, he became a citizen of the Russian Federation. Hayrapetyan was re-elected as a deputy on May 12, 2007, and for the third time in 2012.

It turns out that he was not elected as a deputy during those years in violation of the Constitution. The fact is that Article 64 of the Constitution adopted in 2005 states: “A deputy can be elected who has reached the age of twenty-five, who has been a citizen of the Republic of Armenia for the last five years, who has permanently resided in the Republic for the last five years and has voting rights.” Meanwhile, Article 48 of the Constitution adopted on December 6, 2015 states: "A member of the National Assembly can be elected who has reached the age of twenty-five and has been a citizen of the Republic of Armenia only for the last four years, has permanently resided in the Republic for the last four years, has voting rights, and speaks Armenian."

As can be seen, the word "only" is emphasized in the Constitution adopted in 2015, meaning that it has become mandatory since that year for a deputy to be exclusively an RA citizen, while there was no such requirement in the Constitution prior to that. Therefore, it turns out that there were no violations in Ruben Hayrapetyan's election process; the Constitution permitted him to be both a dual citizen and a deputy."