Armen Mazmanyan was already involved with the topic of constitutional control in post-Soviet countries during his doctoral thesis. He completed his Ph.D. last year at the European University Institute in Florence. Since the beginning of this year, he has held the position of Assistant Professor of Law at the American University of Armenia.

Legal expert Armen Mazmanyan from Armenia will be a short-term visiting fellow of the CAS from the end of February until the middle of April 2010. He conducts research on the subject "Bring Courts in: Amending the Agenda for the New Generation of Democratization Studies". In this project, he is investigating the role played by the supreme court and the constitutional court for the development of democracy in the countries of the former Soviet Union. His theory is that the contribution of these courts to the establishment of democracy has been underestimated in academic circles to date. He contends that it is specifically in such unstable political situations that higher courts often position themselves against the incumbent rulers and support pro-democratic forces – almost as a kind of "Trojan horse". In Munich, he hopes to build up contacts to the members of the Institute for Politics and Public Law at the Faculty of Law, and particularly to Prof. Dr. Peter M. Huber.