Can we say that the Republican Party, which was trying to impose the funded pension system on citizens by Constitutional Court’s decision, lost? Today, in the conversation with Aravot.am, NA Deputy Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov responded to the question as follows, “The Constitutional Court’s decision should not be a subject of interpretation in any country. Secondly, no one wins and loses from Constitutional Court’s decision. If Constitutional Court’s decision is mandatory, it is mandatory. What lost are we talking about? Do the Republicans want this country to be bad and the others to be good? No. This is Constitutional Court’s decision, and it is mandatory for Republicans, all citizens from Meghri to November.” Eduard Sharmazanov mentioned that some political forces are already trying to politicize the Constitutional Court’s decision. “I do not support it. CC’s decision is legal and binding for all of us. I have always said that any CC decision is binding for all of us. And CC has made a very specific decision. Since I am not a professional lawyer, I have never entered into this kind of legal justifications. However, I trust my country’s Constitutional Court.” To our observation that this government, in fact with its entire staff, was trying to impose this law on our population with a number of anti-constitutional clauses, Eduard Sharmazanov responded as follows, “Therefore there are tools in the state, there is a Constitutional Court, executive and legislative authorities, there is a President who is the guarantor for easy and routine activities of these 3 institutions. And today, we once again saw that there is no political pressure on the Constitutional Court, which many people were hinting at. Today, we are living in Armenia, where the authorities are the carriers of exclusively democratic values, and no political pressure is exerted on court instances. In fact, with this decision, we once again proved that the development of democracy is irreversible in Armenia. And all those people, all those figures, who were hinting or making guesses about that allegedly Constitutional Court’s decision should be ordered from Baghramyan 26, their opinions vanished into thin air. This is the most important thing.” To our question of since CC has repeatedly rejected in many issues, for example, in connection with the elections, now after this decision, whether we can say that the situation, however, has been changed in the country, and the authorities, so to speak, surrender, Mr. Sharmazanov responded, “There is no issue of surrender, there is no issue of giving in or yielding. In recent years, the authorities proved one thing: we can be criticized in many respects, can be criticized wrongly or rightly, but there is one thing that they have no right to criticize. It is the fact that during these 5-6 years Armenia has lived a growth of democracy. One may say that it is thanks to the Facebook, the time is such, other would say that the opposition is strong, however, the fact is that under this government, under the leadership of Serzh Sargsyan, April 9, 2000 and onwards, Armenia has provided a substantial development in democracy, human rights and civil society, and in establishment of pluralism.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
