By Siranush Avagyan
Armenia’s new constitution will drop some elements of what Justice Minister Srbuhi Galyan called the current “super-prime-ministerial” constitution. She gave few details about what will change.
Galyan said the draft would provide more balanced governance in an interview with Armenia’s Public Television that aired on Friday evening. She did not say which of the prime minister’s powers would be curtailed or where they would go.
Armenia adopted its current constitution in a 2015 referendum. The vote turned the country from a semi-presidential republic into a parliamentary one. Under the previous constitution, the prime minister ran the economy, while the president led foreign and defense policy. The 2015 constitution concentrated economic, foreign and security policy in the prime minister’s hands.
Galyan said the draft would write into the constitution a guarantee that the opposition holds a stable minority of one-third of parliament. The Electoral Code already includes this rule. The draft would also give the opposition representation in independent bodies. She said the text would be published “very soon.”
The rewrite is closely tied to peace talks with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev says a peace treaty, initialed in Washington in August 2025, can be signed only after Armenia changes its constitution. He wants the preamble’s reference to the 1990 Declaration of Independence removed. That declaration cites a 1989 act on unifying Soviet Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has also said the new constitution should not mention the declaration, arguing that it carries a logic of conflict.
Galyan said that when opposition figures and journalists call the draft Aliyev’s constitution, it insults her and her team’s work. She said the new preamble would state that the constitution is adopted for the sake of the independence, sovereignty, continuity and development of the Republic of Armenia.
“Does Azerbaijan or any other country care that we write in our constitution that we are an independent, sovereign, developing and lasting state?” she asked.
The government still has to get the draft through parliament. Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party holds 64 of the National Assembly’s 105 seats. It needs 70 votes to put a new constitution to a referendum, six more than it has. The opposition Strong Armenia Alliance and Armenia Alliance have both rejected the proposed changes.
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