On 21 February, the Anti-Corruption Court, presided over by Judge Lili Drmeyan, rejected the petition on applying the statute of limitations submitted by Lilit Kostanyan, the wife of the wanted former Prosecutor General Gevorg Kostanyan.
According to Iravaban.net, on 7 February, the court received a response to the amended statement of claim submitted on behalf of the defendant Lilit Kostanyan, in which, among other things, a motion to apply the statute of limitations was submitted.
It was discussed at the 9 February session.
The representative of the respondent stated that the Prosecutor’s Office made a decision to begin the investigation on 8 October, 2020, therefore, a claim regarding the confiscation of property located abroad could be submitted on 8 October, 2023, and the motion to change the basis and subject of the claim in the case was submitted in January 2024, “In other words, the request for confiscation of properties located abroad in the form of changing the subject and basis of the claim was submitted after the study period. The statute of limitations is interrupted in the case of filing a proper lawsuit in the prescribed manner, which, of course, also refers to filing a lawsuit for the protection of a specific subjective right based on known factual data, within the three-year period, the claim against the property located abroad can be considered properly initiated, if it was submitted within that period, but it was submitted in violation of the established three-year period.”
The plaintiff’s representative objected to the motion. He noted that during the study, the plaintiff did not get any information about the real estate abroad, but a request for confiscation of funds aimed at their acquisition was presented in the initial lawsuit. In the framework of the study, inquiries were made and the documents obtained as a result of them were in the translation stage, and the plaintiff has met the requirement of the three-year statute of limitations.
The court found that the statute of limitations cannot begin if the information available to the plaintiff allows him to conclude only about the alleged violation of his right.
“…In other words, the interested person must be convinced of the violation of his right, regardless of whether a violation of the right actually occurred or not, which is the subject of the evaluation of the court…. conditioned not by the plaintiff’s possibility to assume about the violation of his right, but by the facts of reliably of being aware or having been aware about that violation,” the Court noted in the decision.
The Court found that there are no grounds for applying the statute of limitations in this case, the petition is subject to rejection, and the proceedings of the case should be resumed with the completed part.
The Court found that there were no grounds for applying the statute of limitations in this case, the petition is subject to rejection, and the proceedings on the completed part of the case had to be resumed.
The decision is not subject to appeal.
In addition, the Court granted the motion to apply a security measure submitted on behalf of the Prosecutor General’s Office by the the Department for Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin, and prohibited Lilit Kostanyan and Gevorg Kostanyan from performance of any action related to the possession of the premises in Levoberezhny micro district of Khimki, Russia, and apartments in Athens, Greece.
