Lawyer questions Constitutional Court composition

PanARMENIAN.Net - Lawyer and Prosperous Armenia Party representative Aram Orbelyan said that all Constitutional Court judges except one were appointed during the tenure of a single political force, which he argued is a matter of concern. He made the remarks during a recess in the Constitutional Court's hearing on the consolidated case brought by seven political forces challenging the results of the June 7 National Assembly elections.

"All the judges, except Constitutional Court President Arman Dilanyan, were appointed during the rule of one political force. We had a similar situation in 1995, when the court was first established. Following the changes after 2020, all the judges were appointed by one political force. We see this as a problem, but having no court is always worse than having a flawed court," he said, according to Panorama.am .

Orbelyan noted that the Constitutional Court consists of nine judges, but only seven are participating in this case.

"We could find ourselves in a completely objective situation where the court is unable to reach a decision," he said, adding that a ruling requires at least five votes.

"If the court decides to uphold the applications, it needs five votes in favor. If it decides to reject them, it also needs five votes. It is possible to end up with a 3-4 split. Abstentions are explicitly prohibited. That is where the problem arises. In either case, five votes are required. If the final vote is 3-4 and we are unable to conclude the case, we will have to return to this issue. I expect the outcome to be 7-0 or 6-1—after all, at least one person should vote against," he said.

According to Orbelyan, the purpose of their motion was to ensure that the Constitutional Court hears the case in its full composition.

"Our motion was not aimed at reducing the composition of the court by declaring judges unable to participate. On the contrary, we argued that the case should be heard by the full bench, that the judges should ensure their own impartiality within that framework, and that the remaining judges should take any potential connections into account during their deliberations before reaching a decision," he said.

Under the Constitutional Court's procedural decisions, Judges Artak Zeynalyan and Vladimir Vardanyan are not participating in the proceedings challenging the election results. The political forces that filed the applications also requested that the participation of Judges Seda Safaryan and Davit Khachatryan be considered, but the Constitutional Court decided not to place that issue on its agenda.