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The Constitutional Court of Armenia has rejected the appeal of Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan due to a lack of ‘sufficient legal grounds.’ 

The lawyers representing Kocharyan in the criminal case alleging his complicity in the March 2008 deadly post-electoral events filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court on 8 January to dispute the constitutionality of an article of Armenia’s Criminal Procedure Code.

The main matter of their dispute was the legislative regulation which relates to the authority of ensuring the uniform application of the law and other normative legal acts by the Court of Cassation. The attorneys argued the authority in question should be vested in the Constitutional Court.

A Yerevan court ruled on 18 January to extend the pre-trial arrest of Kocharyan for two months and reject the bail plea of his lawyers, with the ruling appealed to a higher court.

Kocharyan has been placed in custody since December 7, 2018, pending trial. He is charged with overthrowing Armenia’s constitutional order during the March 1-2, 2008 post-election events in Yerevan. The ex-president strongly denies the charges as ‘politically motivated’.