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Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Galust Sahakyan participated in a session of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) yesterday, on October 23, the press service of the Armenian parliament reports.  
The Commission’s preliminary opinion of the draft amendments to the Constitution of Armenia - Chapters 1-7 and Chapter 10, as well as the second preliminary opinion about Chapters 8 ,9 and 11-16 of the draft were approved at the session.  The opinions were prepared based on comments of Venice Commission members S. Bartole, A. Endzins, C. Grabenwarter, T. Khabrieva, Y. Tanchev, and K. Tuori.

When speaking about the constitutional reform in Armenia, Venice Commission members T. Khabrieva, Y. Tanchev, S. Bartole, and A. Endzins appreciated highly the draft constitutional amendments, describing them as a document in line with international democratic standards.    

The opinions submitted by the group of experts were unanimously approved at the plenary session of the Venice Commission attended by representatives of 60 countries.

To remind, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on August 21 sent the draft constitutional amendment to the country’s parliament. The draft was developed by the Special Commission on Constitutional Reforms adjunct to Armenian President. Following the debates, the Armenian parliament adopted on October 5 the draft decision of the National Assembly on its consent for the document to be put to a referendum. The decision was passed by a majority of the votes: 104 MPs voted in favor, 10 against, with 3 abstentions. The draft was supported by the factions of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), and opposition ARF-Dashnaktsutyun (ARFD) and Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP). Opposition factions ‘Heritage’ and ‘Armenian National Congress (ANC), and 2 MPs of opposition faction ‘Orinats Yerkir’ voted against. The Armenian president set December 6, 2015 as the date for the constitutional referendum. The campaign for the constitutional reform in Armenia began on October 10 and will end at midnight of December 4.