About 10 days ago, Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to the President of Azerbaijan Aliyev Reutersin the conversation with , he once again mentioned that although Armenia and Azerbaijan live in conditions of real peace, there will be no signing of a peace treaty without the amendment of the RA constitution.

“The form of constitutional amendments It is the internal affairs of Armenia. It is important for Azerbaijan that the provisions considered to be territorial claims against our country are officially abolished: through the adoption of a new constitution or through another legal mechanism.”– stressed Hajiyev.

And yesterday, on July 24, Namik Aliyev, head of the Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of the State Administration Academy under the President of Azerbaijan, doctor of legal sciences, professor, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, referring to the RA constitution, essentially tried to open Brackets in Hajiyev’s wording: “…through another legal mechanism.”

“Article 103 of the Constitution of Armenia of the article According to Part 2, the Referendum Law, as well as 6 other laws listed in it, are constitutional laws and are adopted by the Parliament by a vote of at least three-fifths of the total number of deputies. The 64 parliamentary mandates of the “Civil Agreement” allow to make changes or adopt a new “Referendum” law.

At the same time, it should be noted that the amendment of the preamble of the Armenian constitution, which contains a reference to the 1990 Declaration of Independence with territorial claims against Azerbaijan, does not necessarily require a popular referendum.

Article 202 of the Constitution is of decisive importance, part 1 of which defines the list of chapters and articles in which amendments are adopted exclusively through a referendum. And since the preamble is missing from this list, the second part of the same article applies to it, according to which amendments to the remaining provisions of the Constitution are adopted by the National Assembly with a majority of at least two-thirds of the total number of deputies,” Aliyev said.

202 of the RA Constitution the article, indeed, defines the following.

«1. The Constitution and Chapters 1-3, 7, 10 and 15 of the Constitution, as well as in Article 88 of the Constitution, Article 89, Part 3, Sentence 1, Article 90, Part 1, Article 103, Part 2, 108, 115, 119-120, Amendments to Articles 123-125, 146, 149 and 155, Part 4 of Article 200 are adopted only through a referendum. At least one third of the total number of deputies, the Government or two hundred thousand citizens with electoral rights have the right to initiate the adoption or amendment of the Constitution. The National Assembly adopts the decision on putting the project to a referendum with at least two-thirds of the votes of the total number of deputies.

2. Except for the articles mentioned in part 1 of this article, amendments to other articles of the Constitution are adopted by the National Assembly with at least two-thirds of the votes of the total number of deputies. At least a quarter of the total number of deputies, the Government or one hundred and fifty thousand citizens with the right to vote have the right to a corresponding initiative.

3. If the National Assembly does not accept the draft amendments to the Constitution provided for in part 2 of this article, it can be put to a referendum by a decision adopted by at least three-fifths of the total number of votes of the deputies.

And so, the Azerbaijani lawyer-diplomat observes.

“In this case, when the “Civil Agreement” presented the draft amendment to the preamble of the Constitution to the National Assembly for discussion, Pashinyan’s supporters needed 70 votes to pass the draft.

Two options are possible here. In the first case, the ruling party finds supporters of its project from opposition MPs and passes the bill. At that time, the need for a referendum disappears. In the second case, if the ruling party fails to add the missing votes to its 64 votes, naturally, the project is not accepted.

In case of such a turn of events, the deputies of the “Civil Contract” can use part 3 of Article 202, which stipulates that “if the National Assembly does not accept the draft amendments to the Constitution provided for in part 2 of this article, it can be put to a referendum by a decision made by at least three-fifths of the total number of deputies.”

Pashinyan’s supporters have a majority of three-fifths of the votes of the total number of deputies in the parliament, so it will not be difficult to put the draft amendment of the preamble to a referendum and achieve its adoption.”

In other words, according to the head of the Chair of International Relations and Foreign Policy of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of Azerbaijan, there are two main ways to fulfill Baku’s demand in practical terms. first, amendment of the preamble of the Armenian constitution or exclusion of the Declaration of Independence, in which case the territorial claim that is an obstacle to the signing of the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement is eliminated, and which requires a quick procedure, second, the adoption of a new RA constitution, which requires a long process, political and public consolidation, etc.

What is the problem here? Baku is only interested in the exclusion of the Declaration of Independence from the RA constitution, which Pashinyan does not have the possibility of a quick procedure to implement, which would ensure a quick signing of the peace agreement.

On the other hand, if there was such an opportunity, would it be enough for Nikol Pashinyan, after all, Baku has its demands and fears in the context of the peace agenda and the Artsakh issue, and Pashinyan, in addition to ensuring the necessary conditions for signing a peace treaty, also has his own domestic political interests and fears, and in this case, the new Constitution, the draft of which he promised to publish before the end of the year, is in his favor. Here, it is not excluded that the provisions that are in force will not be related to the army, the church, and not only them.

In addition to this, Nikol Pashinyan, who announced after the NA elections that the majority of RA citizens voted in favor of their proposed peace agenda, in any case, needs one more important confirmation or legitimacy: the holding of a popular referendum.

That’s why he emphasized on different occasions that there is one way to adopt the Constitution: a popular referendum, moreover, months ago he even said that if one referendum fails, the next one will be held. Of course, Pashinyan would like to be able to first remove the Declaration of Independence from the Constitution in an easier way, and then satisfy his own internal political interests with the new constitution, but it is what it is.

On one occasion we have touched on Nikol Pashinyan’s “constitutional revolutions”, and the opposition has serious work to do and the need for revisions in the field of propaganda.

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