Elections: Without Legitimacy. to take the mandates and the Constitutional Court

The June 7 elections also put an end to the “electoral legitimacy” of the current administration.

This was the last, legally illusory, but politically relatively stable fight for legitimacy, which still created the impression among our people and elsewhere that we were dealing with a government expressing the opinion of the majority of the people.

From a legal point of view, the numerous and gross violations of the constitutional order, starting at the latest with the so-called constitutional amendment of 2020, have long nullified the legitimacy of these authorities, as well as the legitimacy of the bodies that have been formed since then, under the conditions of a disrupted and manipulated constitutional order.

In my deep conviction, the leading opposition forces should not be limited only to the evaluation of the legitimacy of the elections, but should make an in-depth legal and political joint assessment of the previous eight years, especially the encroachments on the foundations of the constitutional order.

The June 7 elections, even if they were held with fewer violations, could never legitimize the current government under the conditions of the encroachments I mentioned against the constitutional order. However, they proved that the unconstitutional regime is not capable of holding free and fair elections, in which it may lose or lose a qualified majority in the National Assembly.

The elections were accompanied by blatant, crude and cynical, staged and campaign-tailored interventions in our right to self-determination by the US, European states and the European Community, as well as the Turkic states, which were themselves intended to influence the results of the elections, even without systematic and massive electoral fraud.

The involvement of other states and international organizations on such a scale indicates the intention to colonize Armenia, as the actual level of sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia is significantly reduced or nullified.

That intervention, which is a well-known fact, was done exclusively in favor of one of the forces competing in the elections, with the aim of undermining the competitive opportunities of the opposing political forces in the elections. And to what extent this happened, that is, how many voters it affected, it is impossible to determine, which in itself is already one of the factors delegitimizing these elections.

Combining so many efforts, however, in the conditions of such a modest result, proves that the foreign centers are only interested in the implementation of their own programs at any cost, even through illegitimate authorities, and they are no longer interested in the false veil of legitimacy, the important thing is the effectiveness of the implementation of these programs.

As for the election process itself, it can be stated that under threats of information intimidation, open abuse of criminal prosecution tools, large-scale use of administrative resources, disruption of the control functions of opposition forces over electoral processes, threats of hate speech and coercion, the candidates of deputies involved in opposition parties and alliances: the fundamental constitutional right to be elected has been fundamentally violated:

Influencing the will of the voters with such methods undermines not only the constitutional right of the opposition forces to be elected, but also the objective image of the elections, because it is no longer possible to find out which part of the voters and to what extent these violations affected, therefore, it was the task of the election commissions and the judiciary to find out whether such violations caro՞Did they influence the results of the elections or not? I repeat, not that they actually influenced, but they did՞Were they affected or not?

When it comes to the fact that a small number of votes were not enough for one of the parties to be represented in the parliament, then it is obvious that, at least in that respect, the illegal influence on the will of the voters could have influenced the election results:

Thus, the decision of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) regarding the results of the elections, at least for the PAP, is clearly illegal and groundless, even regardless of the real or manipulated image in specific polling stations.

As for restoring the general, objective picture of the elections, it is not possible, because the intensity of the illegal influence on the will of the voters, combined with the systematic, organized, managed electoral violations, carried out before and on the day of the election, regardless of the ratio of votes, predetermine that such violations of the electoral system were directly aimed at changing the actual results of the elections, and, regardless of the circumstance, did they achieve their goal or not? were able to influence the results of the elections:

Unfortunately, it did not become clear to many during the thirty years that the election results are invalid not only because of the critical volume of quantitative election violations, not only because of the invalidity of the election results in individual precincts, not only because of the arithmetical sum of various violations, but also and especially aimed at distorting the results of the elections due to the actions, inactions and decisions of the state and local self-government bodies and their officials, regardless of the actual results, because it is assumed that if the state uses its tools for the benefit of one of the participants in the elections, and there is a systemic correlation between various decisions and actions to achieve that goal, then it is obvious that the elections quality, regardless of quantitative indicators, is problematic; or which is the same the electoral system has been disrupted, therefore, even the quantitatively less vulnerable general picture, although this is not the case in the last elections, is highly controversial from the point of view of guaranteeing the right to be elected, the legislative and practical guarantee of the true expression of the voters.

In short, elections are not legitimate not only in cases of a large volume of quantitative violations, not only in cases of a significant volume of actual violations, but also when already the quality of proven wrongdoing is such, that could distort the actual results of the electionsregardless of the fact that it happened or not, because that fact cannot be fully determined in the short term of the administrative proceedings and the trial, due to the objective impossibility of studying and evaluating thousands of facts.

If the state is unable to guarantee the compliance of the electoral process with the requirements of the Constitution and laws, and this has been indirectly confirmed even by the observers of the beneficiary countries in terms of these authorities, then the result of that process is doubtful, therefore the legitimacy of the elections is in question.

So, in my opinion, the violations that occurred during these elections in their quality are such that they aimed to influence the results of the elections, and were also capable of influencing the results of the elections, therefore, on that basis, the decision made based on the results of these elections should be declared invalid:

The solution to the question of whether՞Whether the opposition will give up the mandates or not should be left to the discretion of the opposition forces.

Of course, accepting the mandates can create the impression that the opposition legitimizes the election results, even though it declares not to accept them.

In my opinion, that issue was partially resolved by the statement of the opposition forces that they do not accept the results of the elections.

I think, however, that there is an imperative need, not only with regard to the results of these elections, but also through a fundamental statement about the gross violations against the constitutional order in the previous years, to the news of both our people and the international community, to emphasize that the opposition forces do not accept the legitimacy of these authorities, starting at the latest from June 2020, when the constitutional order was disrupted, although there were also obvious illegalities in the previous two years, and that the mandates acceptance is conditioned solely on the acceptance of the new Constitution either by this government and its satellites In order to prevent changes to the Constitution.

On the other hand, even if the mandates are accepted, a strategy should be developed to put them down at an opportune moment.

In addition, parliamentary work without a single and clear strategy for operating in an illegitimate parliament may lead to the reduction or even loss of the authority of the opposition forces, in the scenario of previous years. The stubborn way of working, only reacting to the actions of the authorities, “sharp issues” and so on can indirectly legitimize the National Assembly and the ruling power from a political point of view, therefore, it is necessary to develop a deep approach aimed at ignoring that power and implementing the “alternative parliament” model with the forces of the opposition. It’s too early to talk about specific tactics, but it’s great to have a general vision is important.

I consider it necessary to mention once again that the current authorities, without the political programs of their external sponsors, are deeply apolitical, they are only executors, they are on an extremely low scale in terms of civilization and good manners, and generating serious political processes in the parliament, in my opinion, will not succeed, as it did not succeed in the past five years. From this point of view, only those opposition candidates who can be in power from some distance should be included in the parliament «to communicate» to further inferior performances without their part or «the victim» to become

According to the decision of the CEC, the ruling party maintains a three-fifths majority, so the legal possibilities of the opposition factions will actually be very limited.

Even if PAP mandates are returned to that party, although it will be a qualitatively different situation, the ability of opposition forces to prevent elections or appointments in key positions is limited by the constitutional authority of the President of the Republic to appoint acting officials in a number of important positions (Article 138 of the Constitution).

Basically, only the adoption, amendment of constitutional laws and the election of judges elected by a three-fifths majority can be prevented by the opposition. However, the highest bodies of the judicial power are already excellently organized, and from that point of view, the possibility of causing a constitutional crisis is very small.

There is also a misconception that the ratification of a peace treaty or other key international agreements can be prevented by the opposition. It is not so. According to Article 116, Part 2 of the Constitution: international agreements are ratified by law, which is adopted by the majority of votes of the total number of deputies, and the ruling political force has and will have such a majority in any case, because when it loses, it will also lose power.

Turning to the issue of contesting the decision made as a result of the elections, it should be noted that the current Constitutional Court does not have any legitimacy, and when applying to that body, one should realize that it will gain some legitimacy due to the opposition.

If the opposition received the mandates from its voters, and participation in the parliament under the condition of not accepting the election results does not legitimize that body as a whole, then in the case of the CC, we are dealing with a structure formed almost exclusively by KP votes as a result of destructive and deeply illegal processes, which according to the most optimistic forecast, only the PAP can return the mandates to that party, but even in that matter I have serious doubts, although it may be a plan developed in advance: “power for crumbs”.

The question of applying to the CC is much more important than it seems, because by starting a legal process and failing, the opposition will inevitably find itself in a situation where it will be forced to accept any decision of the CC and its consequences.

It would be more logical and justified if a unified approach to unconstitutional processes, including all bodies formed as a result of the last elections, was developed and consistently implemented.

Of course, in this case too, one can not recognize the CC’s legitimacy and declare that this body is needed only as a platform to present the details and structures of electoral fraud to us and the international community, although legal uncertainty in this matter would be more preferable for me personally. It is not just a question of not trusting the CC on the question of challenging the CEC decision, but of giving a legal and political assessment on the question of its lack of legitimacy.

In the event of a decision to apply to the CC, however, it is necessary to create such a professional and informational advantage over the respondent and other “adversaries” to be involved in the proceedings that it is possible to prevent the impression that the inevitable submission to the usual rules of the proceedings can become a basis for legitimizing that body and its composition.

Nevertheless, as the main author of the draft law “On the Constitutional Court” in the previous edition, which is the basis of the current constitutional law, it should be noted that in terms of challenging the decision of the CEC adopted as a result of these elections, the opposition parties and alliances have wide procedural opportunities, which I would not like to address at this time.

Applicants can identify the qualitative components of the main election violations by focusing on evaluations relevant to the content of the legal positions expressed in many legitimate CC decisions until June 2020. “Conducting” the trial from that perspective, coupled with the full use of the broad legal toolkit of requesting evidence, will allow for a wide gap between the expected unjustified decision of the SC and the facts and legal assessments revealed during the trial. Only in that case, in my opinion, at least on the professional level, it will be justified to apply to the CC.

On the other hand, in cases of not providing wide coverage of the proceedings in the CC, as well as artificially limiting the tools set by the constitutional law for the evidence requested by the applicants, the applicants should be ready to jointly withdraw the applications.

I also emphasize that the focus of applying to the Supreme Court should not be primarily quantitative violations, violations that are not distinguished by qualitative characteristics, various in specific polling stations, thousands of insignificant facts of violations, because such an approach always gives the courts, especially the current Supreme Court, a legal opportunity and will now also give it a legal opportunity to avoid the study and assessment of facts that really affect the election results by highlighting secondary facts and giving them “strict” evaluations.

Thus, in my opinion, the interest of revealing the election violations before us and the international community should prevail over the interest of keeping these authorities in “strategic uncertainty” in order to justify the appeal to the CC, and in case of appeal, it will be necessary to ensure and make evident the professional and informational advantage of the applying party or parties over the opposing parties.

GRIGOR MURADIAN

Founder, director of the legal consulting company “Justice through Law”.

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