National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan announced that the report on the 44-day war will be presented not in a plenary session but during closed hearings, RFE/RL reported.
“There will be closed hearings, and the document will be presented in that format. We just discussed this in the council and made such a decision,” Simonyan said.
He stressed that there is no legal basis for debating the report in a plenary sitting. Simonyan reminded that he had already stated earlier that the document would not be brought to plenary but would be reviewed in another format.
This decision drew criticism from the chairman of the inquiry committee, Andranik Kocharyan, who insisted that the report should be included in the parliament’s agenda, otherwise lawyers must provide a clear explanation.
“If they say the closed hearing format applies, but also claim the deadline was missed and therefore the report doesn’t exist, that’s extremely problematic. If we accept that the report exists and goes to closed hearings, why not to plenary? If it’s not going to plenary, does that mean it doesn’t exist?” Kocharyan argued.
He added that he expects clarification from the head of the State and Legal Affairs Committee on this legal dispute.
Simonyan, however, maintained that the State and Legal Committee has already issued its conclusion that the report cannot be placed on the plenary agenda. The same position was expressed by the parliament’s legal department and secretariat.
Kocharyan countered that solutions are enshrined in the Rules of Procedure law and that precedent already exists.
“The solution is in my explanations, which I sent in a letter to the Speaker. There were also deadline violations during the report preparation, which means there is a precedent. Ask any lawyer, precedent is a major institution in democratic countries,” he said, according to Pastinfo.
He emphasized that he has consulted constitutional law experts and has legal training himself.
“I’m not a child. I also raised this during the four-day session because there too we had a deadline issue,” Kocharyan said.
In his view, Simonyan’s interpretation is disputable and a precise legal resolution is needed.
Earlier, committee member Vahagn Aleksanyan suggested that key sections of the report that do not contain state secrets or security risks should be made accessible to the public.
