Two New Applications Submitted to the Constitutional Court: Aram Vardevanyan

Aram Vardevanyan, a member of the "Hayastan" faction in the National Assembly, announced on his Facebook page:

“Dear colleagues, I would like to inform you that today we have submitted two more applications to the Constitutional Court regarding the apparent issues of independence of the courts and local self-government bodies.

1) In light of the absurd double standards and the deficit of justification regarding the disciplinary proceedings initiated by the Ministry of Justice against judges, we have challenged the constitutionality of that authority as provided by the Judicial Code.

2) The issue of the unconstitutional usurpation of the status of local self-government councils by the executive branch also needs to be addressed. In particular, our application has contested the lack of distinction between whether the head of a given community is elected directly or appointed temporarily by the executive authority and its involvement in the process.

The two applications presented, along with the mentioned issues, are further evidence of the undeniable regression of democratic norms in Armenia. It is noteworthy that this formulation was recently used by the renowned organization Freedom House.”