On 13 March, the Anti-Corruption Civil Court examined the claim of the General Prosecutor’s Office regarding the confiscation of property and funds of allegedly illicit origin from Lyova Sargsyan, the brother of the 3rd President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, and his wife Armine Harutyunyan.
The Prosecutor’s Office believes that the amount equivalent to 9 million 408 thousand USD is subject to confiscation from Lyova Azat Sargsyan and his family members, of which only the amount of the deposit in the commercial bank is 6 million 800 thousand USD. According to the lawsuit, 9 acquisitions of real estate, 2 acquisitions of movable assets, as well as participations in 3 organizations were not justified with legal income. As for Lyova Sargsyan, the Prosecutor’s Office considered as property of illicit origin, one real estate, a car, the amount of 3 million 500 thousand USD deposit in a commercial bank.
The court, chaired by Karapet Badalyan, considered Lyova Sargsyan to have been duly notified, taking into account the fact that his representative Amram Makinyan is present at the session. The latter informed earlier that Lyova Sargsyan is wanted; therefore he will not appear at the session.
In addition, the court allowed the video recording of the court session, except for the representatives of the defendants, who objected to the photo-video recording of the session. At the beginning of the session, the court referred to the question of imposing a judicial sanction on Lyova Sargsyan’s representative.
“Expressions have been made that Judge Karapet Badalyan committed a serious crime using his official position, on which a crime report was submitted to the National Security Service. The text of the submitted report states that the court showed leniency in the decision to allow the change of the subject of the claim. The court considers that there are grounds for imposing a judicial sanction in terms of disrupting and delaying the investigation of the case, abusing the rights and showing disrespect towards the court with the mentioned expressions,” judge Karapet Badalyan said, adding that if Makinyan accepts the illegality of his actions nature and apologizes to the court, then the court can consider the issue as closed.
Amram Makinyan mentioned that he does not understand why this issue is raised after one session. In addition, the lawyer emphasized that he expressed his position in the report about the crime submitted to the National Security Service. Makinyan informed that the investigator made a decision not to initiate proceedings on the basis of the submitted report, but he appealed the decision to the competent prosecutor and believes that the court is putting pressure on him, trying to limit the rights of his clients.
“The honorable court has the right to disagree with the assessments I have presented, but I also have the right to claim that when the plaintiff’s representative apparently considers x amount of property as the subject of confiscation as illicit property, then, without justification, changes the subject of the claim with the permission of the court, then an opportunity to take the property of legal origin of my clients is created. I believe that these actions contain features of apparent crime,” Makinyan noted, adding that he is not going to apologize, because he did not show disrespect to the court, but provided legal assessments. In addition he was “quite restrained” when making those assessments.
The lawyer noted that the court has a sharply negative attitude towards the defendants, taking into account that the court did not take into account their position regarding the video recording of the media meeting today.
The court, presided over by Judge Karapet Badalyan, imposed a judicial sanction and announced a “reprimand” to Amram Makinyan, noting that the lawyer did not accept the illegal nature of his action and repeated everything he had said before. Judge Badalyan assessed Makinyan’s position regarding the video recording of the session by mass media as “disrespecting the judicial act adopted by the court, showing disrespect towards the court”.
During the previous court session, the respondent submitted a motion to suspend the proceedings of the case. Today, Tigran Yenokyan, Deputy Head of the Department for Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin, presented his position on the petition.
He mentioned that the duty of the court to suspend the proceedings arises in case of the simultaneous presence of 2 valid conditions, that is, with the presence of other cases in the order of constitutional, civil, criminal or administrative proceedings. According to Yenokyan, the proceedings of the case can be suspended in the event that it is impossible to perform any procedural action.
“In addition, as long as no provision of the law on confiscation of property of illicit origin is suspended by the RA Constitutional Court, the presumption of its compliance with the Constitution applies and there are no grounds for suspending the examination of the submitted claim,” the representative of the prosecutor’s office said, adding that at the current stage of action the suspension of the examination may prevent the examination of the claim within a reasonable period of time.
The court decided to reject the defendant’s petition; the investigation of the case will not be suspended. After the publication of the decision, the representative of the defendant, Vahagn Grigoryan, presented a motion to postpone the examination of the case, with the justifications of the previous motion, with some changes.
“We are talking about almost the same grounds. We consider this as “other respectable circumstances” mentioned in Article 156, Part 1, Clause 11 of the of Civil Procedure Code, which make it impossible for the court to examine the case. The basis is as follows: “if there are valid circumstances concerning the state of health of the judge or other valid circumstances, which make examination of the case by the court impossible,” we believe that these “other valid circumstances” refer not only to the judge or his health condition, but to any valid circumstances that make the case examination impossible. Objectively, it is not possible to exhaustively list all the possible grounds for suspension of the case proceedings at the legislative level. We think that this basis has been set out in this way so that the court can assess at its own discretion whether there are other valid circumstances or not,” Grigoryan said.
Tigran Yenokyan, Deputy Head of the Department for Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin, stated in his position that the court has already recorded that the presented facts cannot testify to valid circumstances, as the motion to suspend the case has already been rejected.
Vahagn Grigoryan emphasized once again that the basis of the first petition was the suspension norm, and these grounds have nothing to do with this petition. “Here we are talking about considering the investigation of the case as possible or not, without any specific, legally defined criteria.”
The court rejected this motion of the respondent as well. “The court finds it unacceptable to present the same documents as a valid circumstance for delaying the investigation of the case, the motion is unfounded.”
Then, Tigran Yenokyan submitted a motion to involve a third party. “It is also requested in the application to confiscate from the defendants the sums available in the accounts of “Armbusinessbank”, the right of claim arising from the loan granted to Narek Sargsyan. It was also found that the real estate belonging to Lyova Sargsyan located at 42/2 Aram Street is a subject of pledge in the aforementioned bank.
Lawyer Vahagn Grigoryan mentioned that in terms of content, they are in favor of the involvement of third parties.
“We request to involve the relevant entities as third parties acting on the defendant side, not making independent claims to the subject of the dispute rather than notifying the respective subjects of their right to involve a third party and the procedure for its involvement,” Grigoryan mediated.
The court granted this motion presented by the respondent. The court session was postponed; the next preliminary court session was scheduled for 6 April.
Yevgenya Hambardzumyan
