Gegham Manukyan, a member of the National Assembly’s Armenia parliamentary faction, has commented on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s arguments concerning the need to adopt a new Constitution.
Responding to Pashinyan’s statement that public pressure would be generated against the parliamentary opposition if its position prevented further progress toward adopting a new Constitution, Manukyan said that “this is actually a statement about a coup d’état,” Panorama.am reports.
“Every day, Pashinyan adds new charges to the criminal cases that will eventually be brought against him. Pashinyan is speaking against Armenia’s laws because, under the legislation, a vote obtained through pressure on members of the National Assembly cannot be legitimate,” the lawmaker said.
Manukyan also accused the prime minister of making contradictory statements.
“Not a word Pashinyan says is true. His statements can be described as an entire collection of successive lies, because the new draft Constitution has repeatedly been justified in different ways. Eventually, it reached the point where Ararat Mirzoyan openly stated that, you know, the new draft is Azerbaijan’s demand,” he said.
Justice Minister Srbuhi Galyan told reporters at the National Assembly that the Constitutional Reform Council was not prepared to assume responsibility for the text of the new Constitution. Consequently, the Ministry of Justice would bear final responsibility for its drafting and content.
Galyan said that, under the circumstances, she had proposed continuing work on the constitutional draft within the ministry and presenting it to the public under the ministry’s name.
