We Need a New Constitution: Nikol Pashinyan Sends a Message

The Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, delivered a message on the occasion of the Constitution Day of the Republic of Armenia.

In his message, he stated: "Dear people, beloved citizens of the Republic of Armenia, today, on July 5th, we commemorate Constitution Day. The Constitution is also referred to as the mother law or the fundamental law. It is called the mother law because, in any country with a constitution, laws should stem from it, nourished and fed by the theses, concepts, and provisions of the Constitution.

The Constitution is referred to as the fundamental law because, in democratic states, it is one of the few laws that is usually adopted through a nationwide vote. This means that in this case, the people vote 'for' or 'against' the law; the people adopt or reject this mother or fundamental law—the Constitution—through voting.

This kind of legal regulation also operates in the Republic of Armenia, meaning that in our country, the entirety of the citizens acts in the role of the constituent. Why is this so and what is the logic behind it? By adopting the Constitution and voting in favor of it, citizens and the collective of citizens declare that they take on the responsibility of having a state and are ready to bear that responsibility.

Furthermore, in the text of the Constitution, the people express their vision of what kind of state they envision, how it should govern, and what project we will all work on together to realize.

Thirdly, and no less importantly, citizens must record in the text of the Constitution the rules by which they will live in the state they have founded and constructed. These include the rules of relationships between citizen and state, citizen and law, citizen and citizen, human and human, and human and nature. Thus, the Constitution is a collective agreement of citizens about the rules, rights, and obligations of living in their own country.

The term 'sovereign' arises from here. A sovereign is one who decides the rules of living in a given country. In our country, the people are sovereign, and this is true not only de jure but also de facto since the peaceful Velvet Revolution of 2018.

This fact has put our current Constitution in a deep socio-psychological conflict. Due to well-known circumstances, the citizens of the Republic of Armenia today do not consider the Constitution to express their vision and agreement on the rules of living with their neighbors, with their community, and with other residents of their state.

Citizens believe that the ruling elite created that text, declared its adoption, and essentially imposed it on Armenia. My conviction has always been and remains that this is a fundamental problem for our country, and our country needs a new Constitution. At this moment, I am speaking not so much about textual novelty but rather about the novelty of the method of its creation and adoption.

We need a new Constitution that the people consider their own, one they believe reflects their vision of the relations among people and citizens in the state they created. We need a Constitution that is organically linked to the constituent, the people.

This topic is currently being manipulated in both internal and external arenas. But we must steadfastly continue on our path to strengthening our state—the Republic of Armenia—making it invulnerable institutionally, psychologically, and physically.

This is a difficult but honorable path, and we are moving in the right direction. However, to traverse this path, we need to concentrate on a specific issue—the state interests of the Republic of Armenia. Because the state interest of the Republic of Armenia is the interest of the sovereign, that is, the interest of the people of the Republic of Armenia, of real people living in Real Armenia, who have created the Republic of Armenia as a tool to ensure their freedom, well-being, happiness, and security in their internationally recognized territory and to create a just environment. We must not deviate from this goal.

Dear people, beloved citizens of the Republic of Armenia, I congratulate us all on July 5th, Constitution Day. Glory to the martyrs and long live the Republic of Armenia!"