The National Assembly on Tuesday refused to appoint a human rights lawyer highly critical of Armenia’s former governments as a new member of the Constitutional Court.
The lawyer, Vahe Grigorian, was nominated for the vacant position by President Armen Sarkissian. Grigorian needed at least 63 votes in order to get elected in secret ballot. Only 30 members of the 105-seat parliament voted for him.
Grigorian has a long history of human rights advocacy. He has also cooperated with opposition groups that challenged former Presidents Serzh Sarkisian and Robert Kocharian.
In particular, Grigorian represented Levon Ter-Petrosian and his Armenian National Congress party in Constitutional Court hearings on their appeals against official results of a 2008 presidential elections and parliamentary elections held in 2012 and 2017. The court refused to annul the election results.
The 2008 ballot was followed by a violent breakup of anti-government demonstrations staged in Yerevan by the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition. Eight protesters and two police personnel died as a result. Grigorian represents relatives of the killed protesters at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Speaking in the parliament before the vote, Grigorian said that frequent ECHR rulings against the Armenian state have testified to widespread human rights abuses in the country.
“I believe that the Constitutional Court can change this situation,” he said. “At the same time, in my view the Constitutional Court is in need of a profound transformation.”
The British-educated lawyer also said that the court is the only state institution that can hold the Armenian government and parliament in check. Citing Armenia’s recent transition to a parliamentary system of government, he argued that the executive and legislative branches will now be controlled by a single political force.
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