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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Speaker of the National Assembly Ara Babloyan held a meeting on Monday to discuss the country’s domestic political situation.

The meeting has been initiated by Speaker Babloyan, the parliament’s press service told Panorama.am.

As a result of discussions over a number of issues the heads of legislative and executive powers registered in particular that irrespective of political views everyone in Armenia has a right to freedom of speech and opinion.

The officials also recorded that the independence of courts is the key guarantee for ensuring justice in the country, therefore the mechanism of checks and balances between the executive, legislative and judicial powers must not be distorted in any case.

They agreed that Armenia’s judiciary has not yet exhausted its potential, however if the parties come to a conclusion that there is a need to introduce the institute of “transitional justice”, it should be done through amendments to the Constitution and the relevant legislation and should no way affect the justice.

The PM and parliament speaker stressed the need to hold snap parliamentary elections within one year.

Meantime, they named referendum as the most democratic mechanism to conduct snap elections through constitutional amendments, since the Constitution, subject to amendments, has been adopted by a referendum. They agreed that the pick of these options should be based on broad public and political discussions.