Your trusted source

Representatives of ARF-Dashnaktsutyun Party (ARFD) will participate in meetings with members of the Venice Commission expected to arrive in Armenia, member of ARFD Bureau Armen Rustamyan told reporters today.

As was reported earlier, on August 25 Venice Commission members will meet with representatives of Armenian political parties to discuss the draft new Constitution of Armenia approved on August 20 by the Commission on Constitutional Reforms under Armenian President.

“We have something to say, and we are also going to hear opinions of other political forces,” A. Rustamyan said. According to him, the proposals of the Venice Commission are in keeping with ARFD’s approaches.

“On the whole, the Venice Commission in fact gave a positive assessment. But there are some issues, for example, related to the first and second rounds of elections to the National Assembly. The Venice Commission believes that details should be moved to the Electoral Code. We see a problem here: to avoid discrepancies, some statements should be included in the Constitution , which will make it easier to guide electoral processes, while the Electoral Code should be adopted based on constitutional provisions. Otherwise the whole argument will proceed in that direction,” the ARFD member noted.

To remind, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan submitted on August 21 the draft amendments in the Constitution of Armenia to the National Assembly. The draft amendments had been developed by the Commission on Constitutional Reforms under Armenian President. Vardan Poghosyan, a member of the Commission, has been appointed as official representative of Armenian President for presentation of the draft amendments to the Constitution in the National Assembly of Armenia. This week Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan plans to begin consultations with representatives of political parties regarding the approaches stated in the draft new Constitution. The head of state also instructed the Commission on Constitutional Reforms under Armenian President to continue the dialog with the Venice Commission (VC) over those issues indicated in the VC’s preliminary opinion, around which no agreed solutions have been found so far.