Ruben Torosyan, the head of the Center for Parliamentarism in Armenia, applied to the Special Investigation Service demanding to hold accountable MPs Ara Babloyan, Hermine Naghdalyan, Gagik Melikyan and Areg Ghukasyan who voted in others’ stead on February 9 in the parliament of the Republic of Armenia. The SIS in its turn readdressed the application to Samvel Nikoyan, the Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia.
Let us remind that Ruben Torosyan stated in the application made to the SIS on February 11 that the mentioned MPs had violated the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia and the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly Act and that Speaker of the National Assembly Samvel Nikoyan and Deputy Speaker Edward Sharmazanov, accepting what had happened had also violated the Rules of Procedure, not taking any measures against the MPs that had violated the rules.
Today, in addition to the first one, Ruben Torosyan made another application to the SIS on the crimes, where Lernik Aleksanyan who voted instead of another and Karen Avagyan who was “registered” for voting, but was actually on a business trip on February 9, when the National Assembly meeting took place, were added to the list of MPs that violated the rules of procedure.
Samvel Nikoyan, the Speaker of the National Assembly, said to Aravot.am that he had received the application of the SIS at the end of last week and had familiarized himself with that. He didn’t rule out that some measures would be taken in regard to the fact at issue, but he said that he would inform about his decision and possible steps in the upcoming days.
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Karen Avagyan, a Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) MP, said to Aravot that he asked himself a rhetorical question and couldn’t understand who Ruben Torosyan was to have the right to take on such an activity. The MP said that it was an action, by which Torosyan aimed at making himself famous, rather than “an issue including a serious component,” because “Ruben Torosyan is not the one to raise that issue.” In response to a question of Aravot.am how would he comment on the fact that he, Karen Karapetyan, was not present at the February 9 meeting in the National Assembly, because he was in Brussels participating in the EPP meeting on that day, nonetheless, he was factually “registered,” the MP said, “There are such issues and they are characteristic of all parliaments around the world and unfortunately, our parliament has not avoided that in recent years either, although they were urged many times not to vote instead of others. It seems to me that all MPs, first of all I, should avoid such things during their work as much as possible, in order not to face such a situation.”
Naira MAMIKONYAN
