While Armenians Were at War, the Constitutional Court President Handed Out Bonuses and Wasted Money on Desired License Plates

While thousands of Armenians were fighting for their lives in the Artsakh region against Turkish-Azerbaijani and terrorist aggression, the newly appointed President of the Constitutional Court of Armenia, Arman Dilanyan, was distributing bonuses to the court staff and wasting money by ordering more appealing state license plates for service vehicles.

On November 2, “Factinfo” sent an inquiry to the Constitutional Court to find out who received bonuses and how much, refraining from publishing our reliable information. We sought clarification on the necessity of changing service license plates and how it relates to the Constitutional Court's constitutional functions, given the current situation and waste of funds.

The institution responsible for administering constitutional justice responded late, confirming that bonuses had indeed been awarded, despite the legislative requirement to respond within five days. They claimed additional time was needed for studies, though there were no inquiries from us warranting such studies. Furthermore, the response was poorly executed and unsigned, revealing the court's true nature.

It is noteworthy that in October 2020 (according to our information, towards the end of the month when the Armenian side had already been embroiled in war for a month), President Arman Dilanyan signed an order to award bonuses equivalent to 30% of the salary to 84 court staff members (the order does not apply to the judges). Additionally, leaders of two departments within the court received a bonus equivalent to one month’s salary each in October and November.

While children in Armenia and the diaspora collected funds in support of Artsakh, the Constitutional Court opted to distribute bonuses instead of saving money. The court also confirmed our information regarding the change of service license plates.

“Following the selection of three new judges at the Constitutional Court in September 2020, there arose a need to restore the sequence of state license plates for service vehicles allocated to the court. As a result of these two processes, the Constitutional Court paid 138,000 AMD to the Road Police of Armenia as a state duty,” the court's response noted.

When asked by “Factinfo” how the change in state license plates for service vehicles assigned to court judges could enhance the quality of constitutional justice, the court responded that, according to Article 3 of the Law on Free Access to Information of the Republic of Armenia, such information constitutes “data obtained and formatted in accordance with legislative procedures regarding a person, object, fact, circumstance, event, phenomenon, irrespective of the form of disposition or material carrier (textual, electronic documents, audio recordings, video footage, film tapes, diagrams, sketches, notes, maps).” Consequently, they refrained from addressing inquiries that do not pertain to this type of information.

In other words, they have no answer. It is challenging to explain the need to spend money ordering a new state license plate for the head of the court's staff. What was wrong with the previous 020 number that this official now needs to travel with 010? Is this expected to significantly improve the performance of the staff or, especially, the quality of court decisions? So far, it seems the opposite is true. Communications have begun to be sent unsigned.

Source: Factinfo