Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday appeared to be rejecting Baku’s insistence that the Armenian Constitution be amended as a precondition for signing a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Speaking at parliament, Pashinyan cited two reasons for refraining from amending the constitution, saying that Baku’s demands, which have been voiced ad nauseam by President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, would deadlock the ongoing peace talks.
Pashinyan said another aspect for this move was the portions of the peace treaty that have been agreed upon between Baku and Yerevan include an article, which defines that the “parties cannot refer to their domestic legislation to justify the failure to implement the agreement.”
“According to another article of the agreed part of the peace treaty, the parties recognize each other’s territorial integrity, have no territorial claims on each other and undertake not to pose such claims in the future,” Pashinyan added.
“According to the legislature of the Republic of Armenia, after the peace treaty is signed, it should be ratified by the Parliament. Before that the Government is obliged to send the treaty to the Constitutional Court to verify its compliance with the Constitution. Should the Court rule that the text of the treaty does not comply with the Constitution, the Republic of Armenia may initiate constitutional amendments. Should the court confirm the constitutionality of the treaty, it will be forwarded to the National Assembly for ratification,” he explained.
Therefore, Pashinyan said, according to Article 5.3 of the Constitution, “in case of conflict between the norms of international treaties ratified by the Republic of Armenia and those of domestic legislature the norms of international treaties shall apply.”
“Thus, after the ratification by the Parliament, the peace treaty will gain supreme legal force over the laws and other legal acts of the Republic of Armenia. This applies to Azerbaijan, as well. These are the reasons why we refrain from raising the issue of constitutional amendments in Azerbaijan and consider that there is no need for amendment of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia,” the prime minister told lawmakers.
Azerbaijan’s assertions that Armenia’s Constitution contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan are based on the argument that the preamble of that document makes a general reference to the Declaration of Independence, which, in turn, mentions Nagorno-Karabakh.
“The Constitutional Court of Armenia in its Decision of September 26, 2024 noted that the reference to the Declaration of Independence in the preamble part of the Constitution pertains exclusively to those provisions of the declaration that have been enshrined in the articles of the Constitution,” Pashinyan said, referencing a ruling the high court made when deciding the constitutionality of the agreement on border delimitation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“No article of the Armenian Constitution contains any direct or indirect reference to Nagorno-Karabakh. It should also be noted that there exists a clear hierarchical distinction between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, based on the adopting entities,” Pashinyan said.
“That is, while the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR, as one of the 15 Union republics within the USSR, the Constitution was adopted by the sovereign people of the Armenian as an internationally recognized independent state,” Pashinyan emphasized.
