The Constitutional Court of Armenia has rejected the lawsuit filed by several political parties seeking to invalidate the election results. The ruling was announced by Constitutional Court Chairman Arman Dilanyan. According to the Court’s decision, the Central Election Commission’s Resolution No. 259-A remains in force. The ruling is final and cannot be appealed.
It should be recalled that seven political forces appealed to the Constitutional Court: the Strong Armenia and Armenia alliances, as well as the Prosperous Armenia, Wings of Unity, Democracy, Law, Discipline, Union of Defenders of Democracy for the Republic, and New Force parties. The New Force party later withdrew from the proceedings. The defendants were the Central Election Commission, while the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the Anti-Corruption Committee participated as co-defendants. The Civil Contract party took part in the proceedings as a third party. Hearings before the Constitutional Court began on June 26.
VIDEO (In Armenian) – https://youtu.be/CM-edeJMnwg?si=_WoH-MtWLIpdw_pn
The hearings were conducted by a panel of seven judges. By decision of the Constitutional Court, judges Vladimir Vardanyan and Artak Zeynalyan did not participate due to their long-standing previous political party affiliations. Despite the objections of the plaintiffs, judge Seda Safaryan, whom they described as having a clearly negative attitude toward the opposition, was not recused from the case.
Over the course of six consecutive days, including the weekend, the Constitutional Court held intensive hearings. The Court heard the parties and also conducted a closed session to examine confidential information concerning the voting of military personnel and other individuals included on special voter lists.
Virtually all of the political forces that appealed to the Court requested that the election results be declared invalid. The Prosperous Armenia party additionally asked the Court to clarify whether the vote count should be calculated with or without invalid ballots and to revise the distribution of parliamentary mandates accordingly.
On July 1, after hearing the parties’ closing arguments, the Court retired to the deliberation room.
VIDEO – Dissatisfied comments from trial participants – https://www.youtube.com/live/WZslere3nVA?si=mJYL9_nWMjpbadG2
