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, reported news am. A total of 75 deputies voted in favour of the government's legislative initiative, whereas 34 were against.
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. The early retired judges are expected to be paid 630 million drams ($1.3 million) in extra expenditures.
Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan told lawmakers in parliament that certain technical amendments were made in the bill after the first reading. According to Badasyan, the bill has been approved by the Venice Commission, and international practice has been taken into consideration during the bill’s development. He added this cost would justify what the government portrays as a solution to the “Constitutional Court crisis.”
The lawmakers from the opposition factions Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia heavily criticized the law package. “Currently, revolutionary forces… are trying to do the same [as] what the previous ones were doing. It may result in very bad consequences. It is necessary to be foresighted and prioritize country’s interests from the narrow party interests,” said Bright Armenia lawmaker Taron Simonyan, adding that there are serious issues in the whole judicial system, including in the CC regarding the inefficiency of their work but stressed that it cannot be called as crisis. Naira Zohrabyan from the Prosperous Armenia Party, said that the pay-outs offered by the government are also unfair and too costly.
So far none of the Constitutional Court members has expressed readiness to accept the lucrative government offer. One of them, Alvina Gyulumyan, has rejected it as “immoral.”
On 10 October, at the cabinet meeting of the Armenian government, the strategy for judicial reforms for 2019 to 2023 and the planned measures were adopted (Caucasus Watch reported). The Council of Europe Venice Commission said that almost all of the reforms were in accordance with European standards, but the envisaged plan of an early retirement of the CC judges was worrisome to the commission (Caucasus Watch reported).
