YEREVAN, January 22. /ARKA/. Two opposition parties, represented in the Armenian parliament- the Prosperous Armenia and the Bright Armenia – will not take part in the discussions and voting on the election of two new members of the Supreme Judicial Council.
One of the two nominees is Gagik Jahangiryan, a former senior prosecutor and the second is David Khachatryan, both nominated by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s My Step bloc. The Supreme Judicial Council is a state body overseeing Armenian courts.
The Armenian parliament gathered on Friday for an extraordinary session to elect two new members of the Supreme Judicial Council.
“We do not see any political expediency at this stage to take part in a voting on new members of the Supreme Judicial Council, especially that there are reservations regarding the candidates. This is a political decision of our party, ” said Iveta Tonoyan, an MP from the Prosperous Armenia.
Taron Simonyan from the Bright Armenia party, said his party does not see an opportunity to influence the choice of the ruling majority, since it is based only on the decision of one person, therefore they refuse to take part in the discussions and voting.
He added that the candidates were nominated without consulting the opposition, despite a preliminary agreement that one of the candidates would be nominated by the opposition.
“We will not take part in the voting, this is our political decision, despite the fact that personally and professionally we have no complaints against neither of the candidates,” Simonyan said.
Under Armenian law, to be elected the candidates need to be backed by at least 80 members of the 132-seat parliament. My Step controls 83 parliament seats.