“Arthur Vaghashyan’s sincerity, honesty and directness inspired confidence in us.” This was stated by Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Alen Simonyan during a conversation with journalists in the National Assembly, referring to the question of what motivated them to elect Arthur Vaghashyan a second time.
As for the selection of the three candidates and the criticism directed at them that they betrayed the revolution, Simonyan says that they had said from the outset that they did not want to have a Constitutional Court that would be puppet-like or subordinate to the authorities, but rather the authorities would form a Constitutional Court that would be new and principled.
“I do not consider that we have betrayed anyone here. One must understand who those speaking are. I assure you that whatever candidate we brought, there will always be different interests. Different deputies, publicists and analysts will always have their own perceptions.”
To the question of whether the Constitutional Court crisis has been resolved by this, Alen Simonyan responded:
“There is still much time to pass, we still have much to do not only in the Constitutional Court, but in the entire judicial system.”
Alen Simonyan ruled out that Hrayr Tovmasyan would again be elected president by the new composition of the Constitutional Court.
To the observation that on the one hand the authorities declare that they do not want to have a puppet Constitutional Court, and on the other hand they elected Yervand Khundkaryan as a judge of the Constitutional Court, who is accused of being a henchman of the former authorities, Alen Simonyan responded:
“I do not agree with that. I find that during this period Mr. Khundkaryan has been among those people with whom we have not had even one instance where he has played the role of a puppet.”
Alen Simonyan denied the reports that there were pressures or exhortations from the executive authorities to vote in favour of these candidates.
“Our faction discussed and made a unified decision, which it implemented,” said the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly.
