Today, on 12 July, the Anti-Corruption Court continued the investigation of the lawsuit on the request for confiscation of property of illicit origin filed against the 3rd President of the Republic of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, his daughter, Satenik Sargsyan, and a third party, Araratbank OJSC Company. Judge Karapet Badalyan presided the session.

According to Iravaban.net, the issue of videotaping the session was discussed first. The representative of the respondents, Amram Makinyan, stated that the court does not take their position into account when discussing this issue.

However, the judge noted that when the lawyers object to videotaping, the court takes their position into account.

“It’s not about that. It is about the fact that we objected to the court session being videotaped, photographed or broadcast live. The court did not take this into account. After that, we tried to be guided by the minimum principle. Although, I am of the belief that your actions do not follow from the positions expressed by the SJC on this matter, as well as from the law. I do not want to stand up and express my opinion,” Makinyan said.

The Court found that the petitions of the journalists are subject to being satisfied in their entirety, since in fact no objection was presented.

The responding party announced that it should submit petitions, but before that Amram Makinyan referred to their presence at the court session in the conditions when the lawyers announced a three-day strike. Yesterday, he submitted a motion regarding one of the cases, which is also in the proceedings of Karapet Badalyan, requesting that the session be postponed. However, the judge did not consider it a good reason. “We presented the relevant justifications, we asked to postpone the session, but the court did not respect our request, it considered our non-appearance disrespectful.”

According to the representative of the respondent, they found themselves in a conflicting situation and today they came to the court session and again asked to postpone the session.

Tigran Yenokyan, Deputy Head of the Department for Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin of the Prosecutor General’s Office, noted that it is the party’s right to strike, but there are no grounds for postponing the court session. Karapet Badalyan rejected the presented petition. According to him, the court cannot consider the demand for the resignation of the Chief of Police Aram Hovhannisyan, and conducting surveys in the legal community in connection with handing him the certificate “Enemy of Advocacy”, as a respectable basis for postponing the investigation of the case.

Then, the representative of the defendants, Vahagn Grigoryan, presented 2 motions based on the question of constitutionality of the Law on Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin. In the first petition, the lawyer requested to suspend the investigation of the case until the Supreme Court publishes its decision on the law.

However, the prosecutor found that the motion was groundless. 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 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 currently suspension of the investigation of the case at the stage may prevent the examination of the claim within a reasonable period of time.

The Judge decided to reject this petition as well. While commenting on the decision, Karapet Badalyan mentioned that there is no decision of the Constitutional Court yet. In addition, the impossibility of investigating the case is absent.

With the 2nd motion, Vahagn Grigoryan asked the court to postpone the examination of the case on the same basis, but with other justifications.

“The meaning of this petition lies in the fact that we ask not to examine this case for some time, to wait for some time until the Supreme Court makes a decision. At that time, the court may conditionally set the duration. If during that time the decision of the CC was not made, we can discuss the issue of continuing the investigation of the case or not,” the lawyer said.

The court decided to reject this decision as well, on the same grounds. After the announced 10-minute break over, the defendant submitted a motion to apply the statute of limitations. Vahagn Grigoryan emphasized that the fact of submitting this petition cannot be interpreted as the acceptance of the claims or facts based on the claim by the respondents. “The respondent completely objects to the submitted lawsuit, the grounds of the lawsuit and the claims. However, this petition is submitted, taking into account that, according to the defendant’s assessment, the statute of limitations has expired.”

After submitting the motion, the judge cited the relevant article of the Civil Procedure Code and noted that re-submitting a motion on the same basis is prohibited, it is not discussed. Karapet Badalyan also mentioned another article of the Code, which referred to the abuse of the right to file a petition with the aim of disrupting the court session, delaying the judicial examination of the case. “Previously, a petition was submitted regarding the application of the statute of limitations, in which the same legal norms and the same precedent decisions were cited.”

The judge noted that the 3rd petition is not subject to consideration.

“Taking into account the petitions submitted by the party in today’s court session to postpone the examination of the case with many different arguments, the court notes that this petition is presented with the same logic. The purpose of the prosecution is to disrupt the court session, to delay the court investigation.”

However, the Court granted Amram Makinyan’s motion to postpone the court session. The latter was supposed to participate in the funeral ceremony. The next session was scheduled for August 30.

Yevgenia Hambardzumyan