ACTUAL PROBLEMS OF THE SETTLEMENT OF THE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES
 
G. Harutyunyan,
President of the Constitutional Court
of the Republic of Armenia
Doctor of Law
Summary

In practice of the constitutional judicial control the answers on the following concrete questions are actual:

  1. How the notion "jurisdiction" as a category of constitutional justice is perceived and interpreted?
  2. What features do the jurisdictional disputes have as a subject of constitutional control?
  3. What are the main problems and features of the settlement of jurisdictional disputes in transitional period?
The author of the article tries to answer to these questions through the certain theoretical and practical generalizations and the comparative constitutional analysis.

The author proceeds from the fact that the notion "constitutional jurisdiction" has a complicated structure and includes three kinds of jurisdictions: functional jurisdiction, counterpoising jurisdiction and restraining jurisdiction.

The first demand of the settlement of jurisdictional disputes is the revelation of the jurisdiction character and its comparison with the functional role of the parties. Only in that context one can speak about the balance of the jurisdictions and the guaranteeing of the harmonious equilibrium in dynamics.

Considering the problem of the separation of powers three fundamental criterions are distinguished: 1) the guaranteeing of functional independence of each branch of power, 2) the jurisdictions of each branch of power have to be complete and harmonious with their functions. The third criterion refers to the conservation of functional balance in dynamics and supposes the provision of the continuity of harmonious functioning of the state power.

The presence of these criterions in practice of the constitutional justice gives the opportunity to adopt clear fulcrum and to look for the decision in the context of the provision of dynamic functional balance of separated powers, which is the guarantee of stability of the state and the social system.

Analyzing the features of the settlement of jurisdictional disputes, the author concludes that the disputes regarding the constitutional jurisdictions are subject of constitutional justice, in the opposite case it will be assist to the accumulation of negative social energy, to the formation of certain critic mass of the latter and will head to explosive decisions and different social cataclysms.