Conclusions A comparative analysis of constitutional review enables us, firstly, to uncover the common and the necessary, without which these systems cannot exist as such; secondly, to reveal the features and characteristic details of constitutional review in some countries that can be instructive and useful for others; thirdly, to be particularly noted is the emerging need for generalizing the lessons of historic development of the system of constitutional review as a guarantor of ensuring the sustainable character of societal development.

The basic conclusions and methodological approaches on improving the system of constitutional review and constitutional control, consolidating the place and role of the Constitutional Court within the system of state authority consists in the following:

1. Early in the 20th century objective prerequisites emerged for the transition to a qualitatively new system of judicial constitutional review. This was in the first place relevant to the active reformation of public relations, up to systemic transformation, as well as to the origination in a number of countries of extreme situations in the administration of society;

2. The problem of ensuring the constitutionality of regulatory acts does not any more exclusively or predominantly amount to the issue of human right protection. Coming to the foreground is ensuring the stability of society, providing its development with a sustainable dynamism, and the objective of engaging both bodies of state authority and the individual citizens in active and mutually coordinated participation in this process;

3. The problem of establishing intrastate mechanisms of human rights protection was raised to a qualitatively new level, with the specialized institutes of constitutional review attaining a special place. The assumption is that a natural and inalienable virtue is the source of human and civil rights and freedoms, while the people and the state when exercising power are restricted by these rights and freedoms as by a directly acting law.

4. In transitory and extreme situations the priority is given to the prevention of negative consequences rather than to overpowering them. In this regard the deployment of the system of preventive review is becoming tangible, which is incompatible with the American model of constitutional review;

5. The system of specialized constitutional review, particularly for countries in the transitional period, creates great potential for legal resolution of political differences. In fact, that spells a real opportunity for the constitutional and legal way out of all stalemate situations. Efficiency of constitutional review is not determined by the number of submitted appeals or cases to be considered. The main criterion for evaluating the activities of the institutes of constitutional review consists in how much their activities actually affect social processes, the retention of social balance, the sustainable development and the deepening of democratic processes in the society.

6. Examining the constitutionality of laws and providing the supremacy of the Constitution using the new systems of constitutional review has also modified the methods of approach, has moved the assignment from the law-enforcement dimension to the one of public administration;

7. The establishment of specialized institutes of constitutional review has enabled us not only to adopt a complex approach to ensuring the constitutionality of regulatory acts at the stage of their drafting, adoption and enactment, but also to establish widespread democracy by a substantial expansion of the subjects of review;

8. The specialized system of constitutional courts has substantially consolidated the effect of constitutional review upon the betterment of legislative work up to a further improvement of the constitutional decisions;

9. More possibilities emerged for retaining the balance of separation of powers, successful application of the mechanism of checks and balances. Of the circumstances facilitating the resolution of this issue, to be distinguished is the practice of preventive constitutional review with regard to the standing orders of Chambers of Parliament, as well as the right of parliamentary minorities with regard to the constitutional review, the reviewing function of constitutional courts with regard to presidential elections and the activities of political parties, as well as the capacity to resolve disputes emerging between different institutes of state authority, etc.;

10. In many countries the bodies of constitutional review started to be endowed with the powers not so characteristic for their functional role, which has a negative effect upon the efficiency of their work;

11. A fruitful and coherent work of the bodies of judicial constitutional review can be expected when a complex approach is adopted with regard to the establishment of this system, an integral system of powers is clearly defined and fixed in the Constitution, and when genuine prerequisites are formed for its implementation. In this case the approach should not be prompted by a specific up - to -the - minute political incentive, it has to be based upon the specifications of systems management techniques. Despite the varying political situations, the body of constitutional review has to enjoy ensured immunity and independent activities. That is particularly important in the transitional period, as corroborated by the incidents occurring in the Russian Federation and Belarus. This contingency also prompts the need for a substantial improvement of the international cooperation of the constitutional courts;

12. Of special significance is the recognition of the truth that in any society, including the pre-constitutional period, there were written and unwritten rules of communal life with an integral system of their observance. Their meaningful components are: faith (church), ethical norms, traditions (communal, familial), rules of behavior stipulated by the features of a major or minor system, common law, legal regulations, etc. A substantial requirement is that the judicial constitutional review should be in tune with, rather than in contrast to this system. That means that in each country all components have to be identified and reconciled on the basis of multiple features.

13. The fundamental principles that have to become the criterial basis for establishing a valid system of constitutional review are as follows: the functional full-scale efficiency of constitutional courts, a systemic character of constitutional review, rationality of the system, continuity of its action, the preventive nature of review, an organic combination of the functional, institutional, organizational and procedural elements of constitutional review, provision of the multidimensional feedback to public experience, and what is important, exclusion of a new violation of the constitutional balance when redressing the imbalance.

14. In a sustainable legal society the rights are fully materialized in the Law. In this case the concepts of the "supremacy of law" and the "supremacy of statute" can be considered identical. In a transitional society this type of identification is wrong and perilous, since constitutional review has to be based just upon the principle of ensuring the supremacy of law. In turn, the validity of the system of constitutional review is in direct dependence upon the constitutional decisions themselves. The deformations of constitutional principles and methodological bases, the internal contradictions of the Constitution, the occurrence of bottlenecks and omissions in it tell favorably upon the operation of the constitutional review. The guaranteed ensuring of the supremacy of the Constitution has to be primarily embedded in the Constitution itself. The Constitution has to possess a necessary and sufficient system of the intra-constitutional self-preservation. In other words, any system is endowed with an adequate immune system intended to preserve the functional integrity of the system itself;
 
15. The system of constitutional review can function efficiently and fully on condition of certain necessary and efficient prerequisites.
 
They are:

16. Armenia has significant resources for a substantial improvement of the system of constitutional review. This is possible to implement both on the basis of the acting Constitution, and within the framework of constitutional reforms, with regard to the guidelines suggested by the respondent.

With regard to further development of the systems of judicial constitutional review, the accents in the following trends emerge:

- preventive review, as well as jurisdictional disputes, have to remain a prerogative of specialized institutes of judicial constitutional review, while
- concrete review can be more efficient if it covers the entire judicial system (including the courts of general jurisdiction). This approach enables the decisions of the ordinary courts on the constitutionality of regulatory acts to be appealed to the Constitutional Court;
- election disputes are better suited to be examined by the ordinary courts. Meanwhile, the subject matter of constitutional review can be only the final decisions of relevant bodies on election results;
- development of the current systems is proceeding by perfecting the mechanisms of identification, clarification and precise definitions of the competencies and principles of review, improvement of its forms and methods;
- exclusively important in the issue of constitutionality of legislative acts is the nature of decisions adopted by the bodies of constitutional review. We think, this problem should also be considered in a differentiated way, with regard to the type of regulatory act, as well as considering the consequences of enforcing the court's decisions;
- increasing importance should be attached to resolving the jurisdictional disputes between different branches of authority and on the role of preventive measures taken by the constitutional courts. It is more expedient to organically link this issue with the official interpretation of constitutional norms;
- the system of constitutional review is incomplete until review of human rights protection has become part of this system. All countries striving to provide public development with stability and a positive impulse to recognize the need for establishing the civil society, stress the problem of rational use of the creative potential of the society, in the quest for consolidating the ensuring protection of human rights and freedoms by converting the issue into the subject of constitutional review. The New Independent States have to keep in mind that the countries with established democratic traditions, specialized institutes of judicial constitutional review have emerged within the last decades and are in the process of continual improvement, it is expedient to go forward while taking into account their experience to avoid an ongoing correction of one's own mistakes.
 

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