Electoral offence recorded at Armenia’s Constitutional Court hearings for first time, says opposition bloc lawyer

The fact of an electoral offence was recorded at the Constitutional Court hearings for the first time on Tuesday, lawyer Robert Hayrapetyan representing the Armenia bloc told reporters.

"For the first time during electoral disputes, the fact of an electoral offence was registered at the Constitutional Court, i.e. the competent authority confirmed that an electoral offence had been committed,” he said.

According to the lawyer, it should significantly affect the outcome of the case.

The Constitutional Court opened hearings on the election appeals against the official results of the June 20 snap parliamentary elections on Friday. The court received separate appeals from the opposition Armenia bloc, I’m Honored bloc, Zartonk (Awakening) National Christian Party and Hayots Hayrenik (Armenian Homeland) Party last week and decided to examine them in a joint case.

“The Constitutional Court hearings are unprecedented in terms of electoral disputes, because there have never been so many plaintiffs in an election challenge case and such an amount of substantiated data has never been presented,” he said.

According to Hayrapetyan, not only specific violations at the elections, but also other circumstances that could generally influence the outcome of the elections have become the subject of consideration.

Asked whether caretaker Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan would have retained power if there had not been so many electoral offences, the lawyer said: “Definitely not!”