From 11 to 20 Septmeber, 2019, the “Media Advocate” initiative followed online media reports on the President of the National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan’s personality and activities. 35 leading Armenian news agencies have been monitored.
In the specified period, 739 articles were declared, 211 of which were negative, 23 were positive and 505 were neutral.
The Speaker of the National Assembly has been actively covered in this ten-day period. The graph shows that the negative articles on Mirzoyan prevail.
Ararat Mirzoyan and the NA “My Step” faction received various critical opinions for initiating the process of termination of Constitutional Court President Hrayr Tovmasyan’s powers. “Armenian First” initiative group, particularly wrote: “They have chosen the most abstract basis which is easy to substantiate, according to them, that is – a gross disciplinary violation. I would urge the NA majority, starting from Ararat Mirzoyan and the faction leader to initiate the termination of Vahe Grigoryan’s authorities’ basing on the fact that he discredits the Constitutional Court’s authority and is incompatible with the position of judge.”
There is an opinion in the public and media fields that the process related to Hrayr Tovmasyan is illegal and that it puts pressure on the judicial system. According to the publication, Vladimir Vardanyan, using his close ties with Ararat Mirzoyan, has become an MP and is not trying to substantiate the legitimacy of announcing an impeachment inquiry to the Constitutional Court president, while he has worked for the Constitutional Court for many years. According to the publication, Vladimir Vardanyan has been assigned to reach CC president’s dismissal and in case he succeeds, he is to be appointed as a minister.
Former MP, former Justice Minister Arpine Hovhannisyan has also criticized the decision of announcing an impeachment inquiry to Hrayr Tovmasyan. She thinks that the text delivered by Ararat Mirzoyan on the CC President Hrayr Tovmasyan is unconstitutional.
There have been some structural changes in the NA staff recently, and a number of NA employees have turned to be in the staff reserve. One of the employees, Spartak Arakelyan, filed a lawsuit against Ararat Mirzoyan and Chief of Staff Tigran Galstyan. He demands that the July 13 staffing list, as a result of which he has appeared on the staff list, is invalidated.
According to media reports, there was a conflict between Nikol Pashinyan and Ararat Mirzoyan. The reason of it, was the attitude of Ararat Mirzoyan to Amulsar. The publication has it: “He accused the NA Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan of making the situation uncontrollable, stressing that he hurried to express his position without waiting for the opinion of the party leader. They say NA Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan tried to get out of the situation, by justifying that he is the second person in the country, but the position of the government becomes clear to him only during the meeting with the faction, and the Prime Minister in his turn strongly opposed Mirzoyan, saying that “you are not the second person in the country; your position is considered to be the second.”
The opinion of experts who supported Ararat Mirzoyan’s statement on the CC President was assessed as positive.
