NA Vice President Ruben Rubinyan said that the NA Council decided not to appeal to the Constitutional Court regarding the issue of depriving the opposition MPs of their mandate. The basis for such a decision was the decision of the Civil Contract faction. According to our information, there was a clash of opinions on that issue in the faction. CC deputy Hovik Aghazaryan was one of the supporters of punishing the opposition by depriving them of their mandate. He said in our conversation that he does not want to give the opposition a mandate, but to give that mandate to the next candidates on the opposition’s list.
“They have an ongoing part of their roster to come from. Personally, I was in favor of raising this issue and becoming a subject of discussion in accordance with the law. But our faction discussed this issue and found in its majority that it will not raise this issue. The Council is obliged by law to take such a step, but we know that the issue of depriving of mandates is different, recalling from positions is another issue, it is within our powers, we did it.”
Hovik Aghazaryan already predicted what would happen at the Constitutional Court if the council sent the question there. “It is very likely that the Constitutional Court would say that since Ishkhan Saghatelyan did not travel around the world during that period, he was on tourist trips, but he, in his opinion, exercised his mandate through street struggle, therefore the Court could find that it cannot be considered a disrespectful absence.”
Aghazaryan replied to the question: you are also a member of parliament, so when a person goes out to fight in the street, can it be considered a disrespectful absence? “The opposition is the most important part of the government. The absence of opposition significantly affects the quality of the work of the National Assembly, therefore they are obliged to be and fulfill the constitutional duties imposed on them. This does not mean that they should not resort to street fighting. If they have such disagreements on this or that issue that they need the support of the people, they should hold a rally or two and see what happens. If they see that the rally can give them an opportunity to change the government, let them continue, but if it doesn’t happen, wouldn’t it be better if we work together, criticize us, collect political capital on our mistakes, and let us be strong and work better.”
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To the question, that is, their mistake was that they prolonged the street struggle, Hovik Aghazaryan answered, “Yes.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
