On 1 February, the Co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the monitoring of Armenia, Andrej Šircelj (Slovenia) and Kimmo Kiljunen (Finland) said that they were very concerned by the high level of tension between the Armenian government and the Constitutional Court (CC). 

“Checks and balances are essential in any democratic system. This implies that all institutional powers must act according to the rule of law, and respect it in their deeds and words, including with regard to the principle of the presumption of innocence. If they fail to interact according to these principles, they undermine and damage each other. We are therefore worried about the long-term damage these tensions, that have reached an unprecedented level, could inflict on the judiciary as a whole, in which trust is already very low,” they said.

“So far, the Government and the Parliament have respected legal procedures to resolve the situation. According to European standards, the Venice Commission underlined that early retirements should be strictly voluntarily and that this principle needs to be observed," they added. The co-rapporteurs stated that they will closely monitor the Armenian authorities if they continue to act in this way, even if the objective of this mechanism, to uphold the spirit of the constitutional amendments of 2015, seems valid. 

Armenia’s Justice Minister Rustam Badasyan responded to the statement made by the PACE co-rapporteurs. “I consider the three observations noted by the co-rapporteurs on the issue of Armenia important. The first is the following: remember that they tried to convince us for a long time that the constitution, as amended by the 15th year, clearly regulated everything and therefore the current attempts are inappropriate, and the reaction of the co-rapporteurs is more than convincing that our goal is to create a model of the Constitutional Court with the noted changes from 15 years is completely legitimate,” he said.

According to him, the second circumstance is that the reforms that began in Armenia should not be threatened by the crisis, that is, the importance of reforms in the Armenian agenda is noted, and the general impression of the reaction is that the approaches of the Armenian authorities are completely understandable. Thirdly, he also commented on the statement of the co-rapporteurs that there is tension Armenia between the office of the Prime Minister and the Constitutional Court, noting that the tension is obviously present. He added that they took note of the co-rapporteurs’ statement and wanted to take steps that would not lead to tension.

Lawyer Amram Makinyan, a member of the defence tram for Armenia’s CC chairman Hrayr Tovmasyan, said he would like to listen to the “groundings” of the ruling force on how the mentioned “two-step simple combination” corresponds to the recent statement of the co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for the monitoring of Armenia.

“The factual description of the “two-step simple step combination” projected by “legal giants” of My Step faction is: 

“Step One: The first step, as soon as possible, is to amend the constitutional law of the "Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly", providing for the competence of the National Assembly to make constitutional amendments without the consent of the Constitutional Court, contrary to the first sentence of Article 169, paragraph 2.  Step Two: Adopt constitutional amendments immediately after the amendments to the Constitutional Law of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, amending Article 213 of the Constitution and providing for the creation of a new Constitutional Court contrary to the principle of the rule of law and the fact that the Constitution is "final and transitional". "No changes can be made to the clauses." Parallel to this, changes will be made to a number of legislative acts providing for social guarantees for "old judges" of the Constitutional Court," Makinyan wrote on Facebook.

Another member of Tovmasyan’s legal team, Mihran Poghosyan, stated that a constitutional regulation cannot be bypassed by a legislative amendment without committing a crime. “The Constitutional Court petitions to the National Assembly” directly implies that the National Assembly is obliged to apply to the Constitutional Court in matters relating to constitutional amendment, membership in international supranational organizations, or territorial change. Consequently, as per the attorney, applying to the Constitutional Court for matters relating to the constitutional amendment is the objective duty of the National Assembly, not the discretionary power,” he said.  “We will cut off the [hands] of all criminals who have infringed on the state,” he concluded.

On 30 January, Badasyan told the reporters, after a cabinet meeting, that he doesn’t exclude that constitutional changes planned by the Armenian authorities will fully change the composition of the country’s Constitutional Court (CC), reported the Armenian Radio Free Europe.  

“It won’t be a tragedy if nobody applies for the early retirement and it won’t be a tragedy if somebody applies,” he said. “I have already said that the overall crisis existing in the judicial system and the Constitutional Court in particular can and must be resolved through constitutional changes,” he added.

On 11 December, the National Assembly of Armenia adopted a package of bills on amendments to laws relating to the early retirement of Constitutional Court (CC) judges. Under the new measure, if members of the Constitutional Court resign by January 31, 2020, they will continue to receive pensions in the amount of their current salaries until the period when their mandates were to expire (Caucasus Watch reported). The lawmakers from the opposition factions Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia heavily criticized the law package. The Venice Commission also outed her worries over the plan of the early retirement of the CC judges (Caucasus Watch reported).