On 22 June, the Armenian National Assembly adopted in the first reading, the draft amendments to the Constitution, reported news.am. A total of 88 MPs voted for the bill, with abstentions of the Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia parliamentarians.

It proposed to make amendments in Article 213 of the Constitution. Accordingly, the powers of the Constitutional Court judges who have been in office for more than 12 years shall be terminated. The remaining judges shall continue to serve until they complete their 12 years in this capacity. In addition, it was proposed that the term of office of the serving president of the Constitutional Court shall cease, after which the next president of the Constitutional Court shall be elected in accordance with Article 166 of the Constitution.

To note, only three of the current nine judges of the Constitutional Court have been in office for more than 12 years. The current serving president of the Constitutional Court, Hrayr Tovmasyan, has been in office for only two years, so according to the bill, he would remain a judge of the Constitutional Court, but would no longer be the body's president.

The adoption of the amendments came on the same day as the Council of Europe Venice Commission published its recommendations for solving the Constitutional Court Crisis in Armenia. “The Commission regrets that a proposal for constitutional amendments was introduced in the Armenian Parliament on the day of the adoption by the Venice Commission of this Opinion, which proposal is not in line with the recommendations in this Opinion,” read the  statement of the commission. The Venice Commission recommended introducing a new transitional period whose length should be determined by the Armenian authorities.

The ruling My Step faction said that the controversial bill would not be sent to the Armenian President for a signature, nor be reviewed by the Constitutional Court before being adopted. The Venice Commission emphasized in their recommendations that any such laws should be sent to the Constitutional Court for reviewing before being adopted.