Vahe Grigoryan: “The impartiality of certain officials of the Venice Commission isn’t very unequivocal for me”

On February 9, Director of Radio Liberty Armenian Service Hrayr Tamrazyan hosted judge of the Constitutional Court (CC) Vahe Grigoryan.

The following is the question that Tamrazyan addressed to judge of the Constitutional Court Vahe Grigoryan who, let us remind, is unemployed, but receives a high salary and bonuses, benefits from social guarantees, has an official car and a personal office and receives coupons for fuel:

“You justify that there is a huge difference between a member of the CC and a judge of the CC. You present it very figuratively and say that a member can’t adopt decisions and doesn’t have the powers of a judge, but, in its recent opinion and conclusions, the Venice Commission (VC) said it doesn’t agree, and there was a view that ‘member’ and ‘judge’ are almost like a word game and there is no difference between the two. The VC doesn’t really see a big difference between the two words. Now we see that Armenia’s political opposition is waiting for the VC to express its opinion…Now it’s clear that the VC has a view and doesn’t really see a big difference. What is your opinion? Is it necessary to address the VC? Does the VC need to express its view? Is it necessary to send the call of the co-rapporteurs to the VC for an evaluation before the decision on the referendum for constitutional amendments is made? In your opinion, if the VC expressed a view, what would be the VC’s evaluation?

In response, Vahe Grigoryan said he couldn’t predict, but he split the question in two parts, that is, the need or appropriateness to address the VC and the VC’s comment on the issue in question.

“First of all, ‘word game’ is not a word that the VC uses. The word was twisted. However, first of all, I would like to state the truth. I’m not a government official and am not very concerned about Armenia’s relations with international partners. I’m also not a Member of Parliament or a member of the political team to be concerned about the parliamentary diplomacy, etc. I’m a judge of the Constitutional Court, and I would like to be very sincere to citizens in my response to the question. First of all, the impartiality of certain officials of the VC regarding this and other issues isn’t very unequivocal for me,” Vahe Grigoryan said.

According to judge of the CC Vahe Grigoryan, right after the constitutional amendments made in 2005, the VC was the authority that, and certain officials of the VC were officials who officially declared that the Republic of Armenia has a Constitution that can’t be criticized by the Council of Europe in any way since it was the Constitution of a modern state, but eight years later, those same officials willingly criticized that Constitution and started talking about the fact that Armenia is in need of constitutional amendments.

“Similarly, when all civil society representatives and political parties of Armenia would complain that one of the positions of the VC had fully distorted suffrage in Armenia, particularly the requirement for no disclosure of signed voters’ lists (in reality, this wasn’t a requirement, but an approach introduced in an advisory document), and since the Constitutional Court of Armenia would, starting from 2003, refer to that document and continue to keep it confidential, all members of the political opposition in Armenia and even non-governmental forces, those who weren’t even part of the political opposition and civil society were simply stuffing the mailboxes of the Council of Europe, other authorities and the VC with letters stating that their recommendations had turned into a decision of the CC, and that it had turned into a ‘greenhouse’ for electoral fraud and there was a need for some intervention, mainly the same officials were absolutely indifferent until the moment when Armenia’s government addressed them to examine the issue,” the judge of the CC stated, adding that after the issue was examined, the interpretative statement of the VC was about the fact that disclosure of signed voters’ lists is an effective resource to fight against electoral fraud.

According to Vahe Grigoryan, an entire advisory body hasn’t used the effective resource for the fight against electoral fraud for over a decade.

“Now I would like to explain to the citizens of Armenia why is the VC particularly liable for this specific omission. The VC isn’t liable at all. The VC is an advisory body. How important is the advice given by an advisory body for which that advisory body isn’t held liable? I won’t answer this question. This is a question for citizens. I’m liable for my actions, decisions and statements. The authorities are the ones that are liable for those actions and decisions,” Vahe Grigoryan noted.

The latter notes that, for him, even the opinion and stance of Hrayr Tovmasyan is much weightier than the opinion of any advisory body or the official of any international organization that doesn’t have any liability for its opinions and position.

“In 2015, the VC gave an extensive opinion on the constitutional amendments. In the opinion, you won’t notice any statement on Article 213 of the Constitution of Armenia. When the VC sent comments after heated debates last year again, in one of the comments, it was literally stated that the statuses of judge and member of the Constitutional Court must be identical. This itself is a contradicting statement. The statuses of judge and member of the CC are neither identical nor equal. With respect to the term of office, they are overtly different. This is something that the VC hadn’t noticed in Article 213 at the time,” judge of the CC Vahe Grigoryan says.

Vahe Grigoryan added that when he says he has the right to doubt the impartiality of the VC, what he means is that he is going to continue to insist on the official position that the VC once expressed.

“I wouldn’t like to go into further details about the correspondence that certain officials of the VC have had and, I assume still have with high-ranking and politically affiliated politicians in Armenia because, excuse me, this would already become interference in political activities and interior political issues,” Vahe Grigoryan said and went on to say that since he wants to tell citizens the truth, he has to state that the crisis in the CC and the solution to the crisis are absolutely issues that concern Armenia’s sovereignty.

Vahe Grigoryan simply regrets that many people haven’t reached the maturity at the state level to understand once and for all that a member of the CC, who is the final instance for protection of the sovereignty of Armenia, has no value at all when the security of an official depends on the opinions of international officials, when you’re not that protected within the government, within the people and within the society of your country and always have to seek protection.

“There are many things that I don’t want to say and can’t say. I’m certain that citizens understand what other different environments are about. Alongside all this, of course, we Armenians are interested in the opinions of international colleagues, but we’re only interested when we’ll ask them for their opinions. However, their intervention is strange when nobody has asked them for their opinions,” Vahe Grigoryan declared.

Let us mention that, in an earlier interview, Grigoryan had viewed the opinion of the Venice Commission as ethical rigmarole with no legal or political value.

During his oath ceremony, he stated that he views the Constitution as the result of rape (“child born as a result of rape”), referred to the President of Armenia as “a demagogue and illegitimate president who gives stupid speeches”, and a couple of months before being appointed judge of the CC, he had declared that he doesn’t reserve himself the moral right to be nominated as a candidate for judge of the CC, but about a year later, he fought for that position.
A couple of days before taking oath as a judge, Vahe Grigoryan had declared that he pictures the job of president of the Constitutional Court, regardless of the duration and status, but after his election (it seemed as though he had forgotten about this before getting elected), he informed that there is no Constitutional Court and that he isn’t preparing to attend the sessions.

Moreover, as already mentioned, even though he didn’t attend the sessions and didn’t work, he didn’t refuse the salary, bonus and car.

In addition, Vahe Grigoryan is talking about the legitimacy of the Constitutional Court, but he was elected with serious violations.

As a matter of fact, Vahe Grigoryan isn’t the only figure who represents the government or enjoys the government’s sympathy and who questions the impartiality of international organizations, particularly the Venice Commission.

Earlier, deputy of the My Step faction of the National Assembly Nikolay Baghdasaryan had also stated that Buquicchio is not the entity whose opinion needs to be taken into consideration, that his statements serve as interference and that the faction needs to clarify the matter with him. He had also hinted that Buquicchio has some interest, is guided and is linked to the former authorities.

Coordinator of the National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, President of Europe in Law Association NGO, lawyer Lusine Hakobyan (wife of representative of Europe in Law Association NGO, lawyer Tigran Yegoryan) particularly said the following in regard to the response of a Facebook user to President of the VC Gianni Buquicchio’s statement:

“What makes Buquicchio different from what was listed in the statement? He has established close ties with Davit, Arpine & Co and is also guided by biased approaches. The delegations of the Venice Commission have always held formal meetings with NGOs in order to add checkmarks to their lists,” Hakobyan said.

ARMINE VARDANYAN