As Pashinyan Again Blasts Independence Declaration, Chief Justice Says Only the People Can Change the Document

“Only the people can nullify Armenia’s Declaration of Independence,” Armenia’s Chief Justice Arman Dilanyan told reporters on Thursday, as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, once again, blasted the document.

Pashinyan told lawmakers on Thursday that after studying the document he had concluded that “the content of that Declaration of Independence is that the Republic of Armenia cannot exist.”

Pashinyan made the remarks a day after publicly rejecting Baku’s demand to amend the constitution as a precondition for signing a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“I have read the Declaration of Independence dozens of times and have come to a terrible conclusion that the content of that Declaration of Independence is that the Republic of Armenia cannot exist,” Pashinyan declared to lawmakers, without elaborating.

His remarks were in contrast to an earlier statement marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, when he highlighted the adoption of the document as the basis for Armenia’s independence and statehood.

Dilanyan, the chief justice, was commenting on claims arguing that the Consitutional Court, with its decision to ratify the border delimitation agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, had effectively nullified the Declaration of Independence.

“No one can nullify the Declaration of Independence. There is only one subject that can do so, it is the people,” he said.

He said the high court, in its decision on the border delimitation in September, has said what has been a reality for thirty years. According to Dilanyan, there are a number of contradictions between Armenia’s Constitution and the Declaration of Independence from a legal perspective.

“The Constitution has been perceived as a document of supreme legal force in Armenia, and the Declaration of Independence has never been part of the Constitution in its entirety. If we were to compare the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in terms of its contents and try to fit them in the same dimension of legal force, I couldn’t imagine how one would resolve those contradictions,” he said, adding that the Constitutional Court simply looked into the issue for the first time in detail and stipulated the existing reality.

On September 26, the high court ruled that the Armenia-Azerbaijan regulation on the joint activity of the border delimitation commissions complies with the Constitution.