{"id":252475,"date":"2014-04-22T16:28:59","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T12:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=252475"},"modified":"2014-04-22T16:28:59","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T12:28:59","slug":"former-president-robert-kocharian-sees-no-need-for-constitutional-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2014\/04\/22\/former-president-robert-kocharian-sees-no-need-for-constitutional-reforms.html","title":{"rendered":"Former President Robert Kocharian Sees No Need for Constitutional Reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">There is no need for constitutional reform in Armenia. This opinion former president of the Republic of Armenia Robert Kocharian expressed in an interview published on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.2rd.am\/hy\/harcazruyci-sharunakutyun-1398151518\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>2rd.am<\/strong><\/span><\/a> [AM].<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;The initiative for reform is derived solely from the authorities: the explanations made are unconvincing and extremely vague, which have aroused serious doubts in society concerning the true purpose of the proposed changes,&quot; he said.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tIn 2005, he said, the situation was different, and reforms were justified: there was a consensual awareness of the Constitution&#39;s non-compliance with democratic norms, commitments undertaken before the Council of Europe and societal expectations of the need for change.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;Any redesign of the Constitution for the sake of politicians&#39; current interests is a sign of the country&#39;s political degradation. The whole point of the Constitution and constitutional law in general is to limit such impulses of political figures &mdash; by establishing fundamental long-term rules that are difficult to modify in the domain of the country&#39;s governance, as well as the rights and freedoms of citizens. Constitutions were not created to perpetuate the power of rulers &mdash; quite the contrary. Monarchies don&#39;t need a Constitution, while a bronze-plated ruling power, as a rule, is a guarantee of stagnation.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;Frequent amendments to the Constitution are generally doubtful,&quot; said Kocharian.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The initiative for reform is derived solely from the authorities: the explanations made are unconvincing and extremely vague, which have aroused serious doubts in&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[54979,54731,17366],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}