The Constitutional Reform Council was formed by Pashinian in 2022 with the initial aim of proposing amendments to the current Armenian constitution. He changed the council’s mandate in May this year, saying that it must draft a “new constitution” from scratch before January 2027. The move came as the Azerbaijani leaders continued to make the signing of a peace treaty with Armenia conditional on a change of its constitution which they say contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan.
Baku specifically wants Yerevan to remove a constitutional preamble that mentions Armenia’s 1990 declaration of independence, which in turn cites a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. The only legal way to do that is to enact an entirely new constitution through a referendum.
While denying opposition claims that he is bowing to the Azerbaijani pressure, Pashinian has sent mixed signals about his readiness to accept Baku’s demands. He rejected those demands on November 13 only to step up his criticism of the 1990 declaration the next day.
“The Council has not yet discussed the draft of the new constitution,” Deputy Justice Minister Tigran Dadunts said in a written statement to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Nor has it ever discussed the issue of the preamble to the constitution.”
Dadunts did not say when it will start working on the document. The panel was headed by former Justice Minister Grigor Minasian until his resignation about two months ago. Srbuhi Galian, Minasian’s successor appointed earlier this week, automatically became its new chairwoman. The Justice Ministry would not say on Friday whether Galian is planning to convene a fresh meeting of the Council anytime soon.
Minasian said in August that the referendum on the new constitution will likely take place in 2027, after the next parliamentary elections due in June 2026. Daniel Ioannisian, a civic activist sitting on the Council, suggested on Friday that it may well be held later.
“The concept [of the new constitution] and then the draft itself will have to be approved by two-thirds of the next parliament,” argued Ioannisian. “Who will make up two-thirds of the next parliament? Who can predict that? Nobody.”
Another member of the panel, politician Edmon Marukian, claimed that Pashinian’s administration will fail to enact the new constitution.
“In all areas, they [the authorities] set goals, some deadlines for some projects but fail to meet them,” said Marukian, who now claims to be in opposition to Pashinian. “So I think this process too will definitely fail.”