“Zhamanak” says it is still not clear what the Armenian government will do if Constitutional Court judges decline its financially lucrative offer of early retirement which the paper describes as a legal “bribe.” It says that accepting the offer would be a dishonorable thing on the part of the judges
Lragir.am sees contradictions in pro-government parliamentarians’ public statements in support of the financial incentives offered to the high court justices. The publication too wonders how the authorities will act if none of the justices takes up the lucrative option. It warns that the authorities will risk accusations of illegal pressure on the judicial branch if they resort to other methods of getting rid of the Constitutional Court’s chairman, Hrayr Tovmasian, and other members. “A solution to the question of the Constitutional Court’s legitimacy requires serious discussions of in-depth conceptual approaches, rather than a replacement of judges which can at most satisfy some people’s personal and perhaps also political ambitions but prove highly insufficient for satisfying the state’s ambition to have an independent and efficient judicial system,” it says.
“Aravot” carries an editorial on the first anniversary of Armenia’s last parliamentary elections won by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s My Step bloc. “That was an important event because in the history of the Third [Armenian] Republic there have been few elections the results of which were fully trusted by the public and not challenged by any political force,” writes the paper. “In 2018, the vast majority of citizens voted solely for Nikol Pashinian, who drew up a list of 88 people [running for the parliament.] The people included on that list were either unknown to the public or simply known as ‘people standing with Nikol,’ so to speak. This certainly adds to the burden carried by the current prime minister.” Even so, the paper says, for all its shortcomings, the current National Assembly is better than any of the previous Armenian parliaments formed since 1995.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
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