On 27 January, the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan shared on Facebook a personal story regarding him and the President of the Constitutional Court (CC) of Armenia Hrayr Tovmasyan, regarding a pen which Pashinyan allegedly got as a present from the CC chairman. 

“This is Hrayr Tovmasyan's pen. I'd been thinking about whether or not throwing it into the garbage bin for a long time. In the end, I decided to keep [it], as a testimony of the most bizarre buttering-up, flattery I've ever seen,“ wrote Pashinyan. According to Pashinyan, the pen was given to him by Tovmasyan after he was appointed the Prime Minister of Armenia, and the pen remained with Pashinyan as a “pledge of faithfulness.” Pashinyan’s Facebook story further emphasized that Tovmasyan tried on two occasions to achieve legitimacy as the CC chairman, by constantly inviting Pashinyan to the CC at Armenia’s Constitution Day anniversary (5 July) and at the Christmas liturgy in 2019, when he “began buttering up to my wife Anna Hakobyan.” Pashinyan also wrote that he was shocked by the value of the pen, which according to social media was around 530€. ″The Pen is the symbol that could have potentially authorized us to take control of Constitutional Court,″ his post further read.  

Two days earlier, Pashinyan spoke at a press conference saying that Armenian law-enforcement authorities have thwarted a “hybrid” conspiracy to discredit and overthrow him which he said was hatched by former and current state officials. He said that the alleged conspiracy involved “tens of millions of dollars” spent on the spread of “false information” about him, his family members and associates. “And that was done through the criminal underworld, various forces, corrupt figures. Why does the word ‘coup’ match this process? Because this process was joined by serving officials who acted against the government while being inside the government. Former officials and some representatives of the judicial system were also involved…,” he added.

Pashinyan then openly stated that Armenia does not have a Constitutional Court envisaged by the Constitution. “Armenia’s Constitution envisages that the CC chairman must be elected from the CC staff but today we have CC elected by the NA and today it has been revealed that the CC chairman has been elected as a result of official fraud. We cannot say it is a light fraud. It is an official fraud as a result of which the CC has been occupied by a person, by a group. We will do what is necessary to be done,“ he stated. 

Tovmasyan reacted to Pashinyan’s statements, describing them as lies, and applied to his lawyers to prepare a lawsuit against him. The CC chairman stated that after May 2018 he talked with Pashinyan on phone twice. “During the first phone conversation he asked me to examine an international agreement necessary for the implementation of Armenia’s international commitments in possible shortest period of time. And the second time we talked [was at my behest] as I was to organize his meeting with the Chairman of Germany’s Constitutional Court Andreas Voßkuhle in the side-lines of the latter’s visit. I have never met face-to-face with Nikol Pashinyan. I have never visited the Government building and his governmental residence either, with the exception of the meeting with Voßkuhle. Pashinyan [has never] visited the Constitutional Court, nor my office. I have never offered my services to either Pashinyan or any representative of the authorities,” he said. 

“I demand… the Prime Minister to publicly voice at least one trustworthy fact, one objective fact showing that at least once after May 2018 I have offered “my services” directly or in a mediated way and proposed “to undertake any step” against Pashinyan or his force's support to me or the Constitutional Court. Starting from this moment, I will patiently wait for 20 days for Pashinyan to publish any objective fact, any trustworthy proof grounding his words. Otherwise, I will ask my lawyers to submit a lawsuit against Nikol Pashinyan for slander,” he added.

The former Director of Armenia’s National Security Service Artur Vanetsyan, who resigned from his post in September (Caucasus Watch reported), wrote on his Twitter that after yesterday’s press conference and today’s pen story the ruling party, stemming from the national security observations, must discuss the possibility of a new candidate for the post of the Prime Minister.

On the same day (27 January), a member of the majority My Step faction in Armenia, Henrik Hartenyan put down his mandate as a result of posting a photo on Facebook with Tovmasyan’s daughter. "This is the FB of H. Tovmasyan's daughter; let me see you, people,” Hartenyan stated in the post. Hartenyan put down his mandate after the Yerevan Council of Elders urged him to do so. “We reaffirmed that it is not in line with our value system, it is against our principles and we urged Hartenyan to put down his mandate,” read the statement from the Council of Elders. The Armenian Ombudsman also criticized the step.

On 24 January, investigators searched Tovmasyan’s Yerevan apartment  one month after indicting him on charges of abuse of power (Caucasus Watch reported).

Tovmasyan claimed that officers of the Special Investigative Service (SIS) raided his home as a part of the Armenian government’s intensifying efforts to force him to resign. “The current authorities are seeking to quickly get rid of me as chairman of the Constitutional Court, and that is being done in a very crude and open manner,” he told journalists after the search.

His lawyers claimed, meanwhile, that the search was conducted illegally because the SIS investigators failed to give their client a copy of the search warrant issued by a Yerevan court. The SIS was quick to deny that.

The Armenian government and investigators maintain that there were no political motives behind the high-profile case.