Thursday,
Armenian Parliament Approves Asset Seizures
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and members of his cabinet at a
parliament session in Yerevan, December 4, 2019.
Armenia’s parliament passed in the first reading on Thursday a government bill
allowing authorities to confiscate private properties and other assets deemed to
have been acquired illegally.
Under the package of legal amendments drafted by the Armenian government late
last year, prosecutors will be able to investigate individuals in case of having
“sufficient grounds to suspect” that the market value of their assets exceeds
their “legal incomes” by more than 25 million drams ($52,400).
Should the prosecutors find such discrepancies they can ask courts to
nationalize those assets even if their owners are not found guilty of corruption
or other criminal offenses. The latter will have to prove the legality of their
holdings if they are to retain them.
During a parliament debate on Wednesday, Justice Minister Rustam Badasian
insisted that corruption suspects, notably current and former state officials,
are the main targets of the the bill portrayed by the government as a major
anti-corruption measure. The authorities will also use it against crime figures
and carriers of “criminal subculture,” he said.
“Nobody beyond this circle can fall under the jurisdiction of this law except in
cases where assets were artificially registered in a particular person’s name,”
Badasian told lawmakers.
The minister thus sought to allay fears that many well-to-do Armenians will now
risk losing their properties. He specifically ruled out the confiscation of
assets acquired with remittances received from abroad.
The bill was tentatively backed by 100 members of the 132-seat National
Assembly. They included deputies from the ruling My Step bloc and the opposition
Bright Armenia Party (LHK).
Still, LHK leader Edmon Marukian voiced some misgivings about the effectiveness
of the measure. He said that corrupt officials who registered their wealh in
their relatives’ name may well be let off the hook. Marukian said his party will
propose a number of amendments when the bill is debated in the second reading.
The opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) also said that it will propose
changes to the bill. BHK deputies abstained in Thursday’s parliament vote.
Other critics of the government have challenged the legality of the government
plans for asset seizures. They also claim that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is
intent on a far-reaching “redistribution of property” in the country.
Pashinian has denied having such plans. He insisted in December that the planned
asset forfeiture is essential for rooting out corruption and will not be
arbitrary.
Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian openly objected to the bill at the time,
however. Speaking at a cabinet meeting, the former banker said he is worried
that it could scare away investors and lead to capital flight from Armenia.
Pashinian’s Party Hires ‘Former Regime Backers’ For Referendum
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia -- Campaign banners urging Armenians to vote for constitutional changes
sought by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Yerevan, March 5, 2020.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party has been criticized by
some of its political allies for hiring several hundred people previously linked
to Armenia’s former authorities to conduct the upcoming referendum on
controversial constitutional amendments sought by it.
Under Armenian law, the two rival camps campaigning for and against the draft
amendments are each allowed to name two of the seven members of some 2,000
precinct election commissions that will handle the April 5 referendum in polling
stations across the country. They both practically filled these quotas by last
weekend’s legal deadline.
It emerged that more than 500 commission members appointed by Civil Contract,
which leads the “Yes” campaign, had already been chosen by the former ruling
Republican Party (HHK) and its former coalition partners to sit on election
commissions formed for December 2018 parliamentary elections. Critics claim that
at least some of these individuals were involved in vote irregularities that had
marred previous Armenian elections.
Vahagn Hovakimian, a leading Civil Contract member, dismissed the criticism on
Thursday. He said that the “Yes” campaign has carried out background checks on
those commission members and found that only one of them was implicated in
electoral fraud. That person has been disqualified from the referendum process
as a result, he said.
Hovakimian also argued that the 2018 elections, held six months after the
Pashinian-led “Velvet Revolution,” were widely recognized as free and fair.
A senior representative of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian
National Congress (HAK) party dismissed this explanation, insisting that
Pashinian’s political team has recruited people notorious for a “very dubious
behavior.”
“People who were tainted during [past] electoral processes must never again deal
with [new] electoral processes,” Armen Khachatrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian
service. “The authorities should have been very careful.”
Khachatrian complained in this regard that only 180 of some 1,200 people
nominated by the HAK have been appointed to the referendum commissions by the
“Yes” campaign.
Hovakimian countered that Civil Contract could not have picked more HAK nominees
because of the limited number of commission seats. Also, he said, there are far
fewer commission members representing other parties supporting the proposed
constitutional changes.
The amendments call for ending the powers of the chairman and six other judges
of Armenia’s seven-member Constitutional Court who had been installed by former
governments. Pashinian has repeatedly accused them of maintaining links to the
“corrupt former regime” and obstructing judicial reforms.
Pashinian’s political opponents and other critics say that he is simply seeking
to fill the country’s highest court with his loyalists. They have also denounced
the referendum as unconstitutional.
Tsarukian-Backed Mayor Denies Charges
• Artak Khulian
Armenia -- Abovian Mayor Vahagn Gevorgian speaks to reporters, March 5, 2020.
A town mayor linked to businessman Gagik Tsarukian’s opposition Prosperous
Armenia Party (BHK) on Thursday strongly denied criminal charges brought against
him earlier this week.
Mayor Vahagn Gevorgian of Abovian, a town 15 kilometers north of Yerevan, was
charged with criminal negligence. Prosecutors said that he deliberately failed
to stop a private company from “seizing” municipal land in Abovian and illegally
constructing apartment blocks there.
Gevorgian admitted that the company, which is part of Tsarukian’s Multi Group
conglomerate, occupied a 2,000-square-meter plot of land and lacked other
permits to build a residential complex in his community. But he argued that the
Abovian municipality twice fined it and suspended the construction last year.
Speaking to journalists at the construction site, Gevorgian said the
municipality did not move to tear down the incomplete buildings because Multi
Group formally asked it to legalize them in accordance with an Armenian law. He
also stressed that Tsarukian’s company plans to build around 1,000 apartments in
what would be the first affordable housing project implemented in Abovian since
Soviet times.
A spokesman for Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General, Gor Abrahamian,
insisted, however, that Gevorgian was obliged to take tougher measures against
the real estate developer.
Another law-enforcement agency, the Investigative Committee, formally indicted
Gevorgian on Monday despite the fact that the Armenian police investigated the
redevelopment project and cleared the mayor of any wrongdoing last year.
The police inquiry was ordered by prosecutors in July 2019 one month after
Gevorgian narrowly won reelection in a tightly contested mayoral vote. His main
challenger was a candidate of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract
party.
Pashinian personally campaigned for the pro-government candidate.Tensions
between the prime minister’s political team and Tsarukian’s BHK, which is
Armenia’s largest parliamentary opposition force, ran high during the mayoral
race.
Gevorgian said he does not yet see political motives behind the charges leveled
against him. “I think this is the result of a misunderstanding and everything
will be sorted out,” said the Abovian mayor.
Abovian has long been a political and economic stronghold of Tsarukian.
Three Senior Members Quit Armenia’s Former Ruling Party
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - The ruling Republican Party of Armenia holds a congress in Yerevan,
26Nov2016.
Three senior members of the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) have
decided to leave it, citing disagreements with the HHK’s top leader, former
President Serzh Sarkisian.
One of them, Lernik Aleksanian, on Thursday accused Sarkisian of turning the
party into a “trade union” for “criminal-oligarchic” elements and practices.
“The party was invaded by many, many individuals who have nothing to do with the
party’s ideology,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian. “They gained major positions
within the party.”
Aleksanian is a former parliamentarian, while the two other dissenters, Razmik
Martirosian and Firdus Zakarian, used to hold senior government posts. All three
men have been members of the HHK’s decision-making Council.
In Aleksanian’s words, they terminated their membership in the HHK on January 13
after trying unsuccessfully to trigger an internal debate on “mistakes”
committed by the party. Sarkisian and his inner circle systematically obstructed
such a debate despite acknowledging those mistakes, claimed Aleksanian.
He said they have specifically delayed the holding of what would be the first
party congress since the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” that toppled Sarkisian.
Armenia - Parliament deputy Lernik Aleksanian speaks to RFE/RL in Yerevan,
23Feb2017.
“Good riddance,” HHK spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov said when asked to comment on
the resignations and Aleksanian’s remarks. He refused to comment further.
Sarkisian provoked the revolution nearly two years ago with his attempt to
extend his decade-long rule after transforming Armenia into a parliamentary
republic. Massive street protests across the country that broke out in April
2018 were fuelled by widespread popular disaffection with government corruption
and cronyism.
Sarkisian as well as some of his relatives and associates were prosecuted on
corruption charges after the dramatic regime change. The ex-president went on
trial last week. He rejects the accusations leveled against him as politically
motivated.
The HHK narrowly failed to clear the 5 percent vote threshold to enter the
current Armenian parliament in snap general elections held in December 2018. It
remains highly critical of Armenia’s current leadership and Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian in particular.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.