Armenia does not need Constitutional reforms for the mother law is not applied, lawyer Tigran Athanesyan said during an August 11 press conference in Yerevan.
According to him, the constitutional reform agenda is artificial and the goal it pursues is to distract the society's attention from the socio-economic and demographic problems of the country. The current constitution, he says, does not allow plunder, law violations, it does not fuel migration, nevertheless, the regime in power does ignore the demands. The new constitution has not been written to solve problems. the present authorities simply want to be reproduced in the future.
In his turn, expert in constitutional law Gabriel Balayan believes the country does need constitutional reforms and changes. However, the suggested one does not hold up against criticism for there are numerous controversial wordings. The draft seems to be raw, he says, it does not solve security issues under military conditions.
The professional Committee on Constitutional Reforms has published the 15 chapters of the RA draft Constitution on August 4. The first 7 Chapters of the draft Constitution were published on July 15, which resulted in equivocal reactions among the Armenian society, experts and political forces. The draft constitutional reforms initiated by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan imply a switch to a parliamentary regime. According to the new draft Constitution, the Prime Minister becomes the commander- in-chief in the times of war. The President becomes an arbitrator assuring natural implementation of the Constitution of the country. The President is elected by a board consisting of parliamentarians and representatives of local administrations, then he/she appoints the Prime Minister represented by the Parliamentary Majority. The President shall be non- partisan and can be elected for seven years one term only. The Parliament is formed by means of proportional elections and consists of at least 101 members.