Proposal to pass to semi-presidential governance system aimed at serving own, narrow interests: expert

Armenian National Congress came up with proposal last week to undertake constitutional reforms and change the country’s governance system from parliamentary into semi-presidential.

Aysor.am conducted interview with constitutionalist Vardan Ayvazyan over the necessity of conduction constitutional amendments.

Ayvazyan described the proposal as an absolute circus as the constitutional changes have two logics – corrections and additions.

“While now it appears that the previous model of governance of the state was not right and we changed it into parliamentary system, now we consider that no, this is not right either, let’s return to the previous model,” he said, stressing that this makes our statehood, the Constitution, as the main law of the state, unserious which is inadmissible.

“If the ANC comes up with such proposal, at least it should have presented a deep conceptual analysis to the public to ground the return to the semi-presidential system. Naturally, they do not have the grounding and could not have it, thus, without it no initiative may be considered serious,” he noted.

As to whether the Constitution needs corrections and additions, the expert said that they are necessary in the sector relating to the president’s institute, which ensures the state wholeness, and which lacks, in essence.

“Besides, the clear grounds for dissolving the National Assembly should have also been registered and this authority should not be reserved to the president of the republic. If the grounds of government’s non-confidence, resignation are clearly registered, the grounds for dissolving the parliament are not, which causes a deadlock situation,” he said, adding that such issues must be resolved.

As to return to semi-presidential system, the expert said it is not aimed at raising the quality of the state but is an attempt to serve own narrow interests.

As to the reduction of number of ministries proposed by the government, which is being described by many as granting super-ministry status to some, the expert said, “Be the ministry super, hyper, or anything else, the efficiency of its work is agreed with the knowledge of the minister, his/her system of value, skills. If a minister lacks these three qualities, no changes will give results. The issue is in the ministers and not in the names of the ministries,” he concluded.