‘Jrakanutyun’. Nikol Pashinyan Has 15 Days Left to Make a Decision

‘Jrakanutyun’ newspaper reports: Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has only 15 days left to propose candidates for the positions of Chief of Police and Director of the National Security Service (NSS).

As is known, on September 19, 2019, upon the proposal of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, President Armen Sarkissian appointed Arman Sargsyan as acting Chief of Police and Eduard Martirosyan as acting Director of the NSS. Thus, for the past 5.5 months, these positions have been held by acting officials, but this situation cannot last longer than six months.

Specifically, Article 14, Clause 10 of the Law on Police states: 'A temporary acting appointment may be made for a vacant police position, but not for a period exceeding six months.' The same also applies to the Law on National Security Bodies, where this provision is enshrined in Article 23.

It turns out that the Prime Minister has 15 days left to orient himself. What is causing this uncertainty? It is possible that the Prime Minister is struggling to find trustworthy individuals for the power structures, or he may be using this time period to assess the heads of those structures.

For more details, see today’s issue of the newspaper.