Author: Hambik Zargarian

                                        Wednesday, 
Judicial Official Expects ‘Legal’ Rulings From Constitutional Court
        • Astghik Bedevian
Armenia -- Ruben Vartazarian, head of the Supreme Judicial Council, holds a 
news conference in Yerevan, September 4, 2019.
The head of a state body overseeing Armenia’s judiciary said on Wednesday that 
the Constitutional Court will deal with the criminal case against former 
President Robert Kocharian in a way defined by the law.
“The issue will find a solution on the legal plane and on the plane of correct 
formulation of issues,” Ruben Vartazarian, the chairman of the Supreme Judicial 
Council, told a news conference.
Vartazarian spoke hours before the Constitutional Court ruled on one of the 
appeals lodged by Kocharian against his arrest and prosecution on charges 
stemming from the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.
One of the court’s nine judges, Vahe Grigorian, demanded last week that three 
of his colleagues, including the court’s chairman, Hrayr Tovmasian, recuse 
themselves from the case. Grigorian said that they cannot be impartial and 
objective because of having been previously involved in controversial decisions 
relating to the 2008 unrest case.
Grigorian himself was excluded from the consideration of Kocharian’s appeal in 
July. Tovmasian argued that he has represented relatives of the eight 
protesters killed in March 2008 in other courts.
The relatives’ current lawyer, Tigran Yegorian, backed Grigorian’s demand 
before it was effectively rejected by Armenia’s highest court. Yegorian said 
failure to accept it would mean that Constitutional Court rulings on the case 
are illegitimate and can be ignored by other courts and law-enforcement bodies.
Vartazarian declined to say whether he agrees with Yegorian’s claims. He 
suggested only that a district court judge who will resume Kocharian’s trial on 
September 12 might “take Tigran Yegorian’s opinion into account.”
“I have neither the right nor the desire to say what [judge] Anna Danibekian 
should do,” added the head of the judicial watchdog.
Vartazarian also said that both the Armenian authorities and Kocharian’s allies 
are “making attempts” to put pressure on the courts dealing with the 
high-profile case. He pointed to rival protests staged by the ex-president’s 
backers and detractors outside the Constitutional Court building in Yerevan.
Pashinian Again Meets Top Officials On Amulsar
        • Susan Badalian
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian discusses with senior government and 
law-enforcement officials the future of the Amulsar mining project, Yerevan, 
September 4, 2019.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met with senior government and law-enforcement 
officials on Wednesday for further discussions on the future of a controversial 
gold mining project in Armenia disrupted over a year ago.
The meeting focused on the Armenian government’s response to the results of an 
environmental audit of the project conducted by a Lebanese company, ELARD.
During a video conference with Armenian officials moderated by Pashinian last 
week ELARD experts said they cannot definitively evaluate environmental dangers 
of the project launched by the British-American company Lydian International. 
They claimed that Lydian had submitted flawed and incomplete information to 
regulatory authorities about its plans to mine gold at the Amulsar deposit 160 
kilometers southeast of Yerevan.
ELARD sent a written report to Armenia’s Investigative Committee earlier in 
August. According to the law-enforcement body, the report concluded that 
Lydian’s operations would pose only “manageable” risks to the environment.
Pashinian said at the end of the video conference that the government will now 
wait and see whether the Armenian Ministry of Environment decides to order 
Lydian to draw up another environmental impact assessment and submit it to a 
relevant ministry division for approval. Environment Minister Erik Grigorian 
said the decision will be announced by September 4.
Grigorian spoke at Wednesday’s meeting chaired by Pashinian and attended by 
other cabinet members as well as the heads of the Investigative Committee and 
three other law-enforcement agencies and Central Bank Governor Artur Javadian.
A government statement on the meeting did not say whether Grigorian believes 
that Lydian should go through another licensing process that would probably 
take several months. It only cited him as saying that Lydian had presented 
inaccurate “starting data” before being granted its mining license in April 
2016.
“There is no final decision yet [on the new impact assessment,]” Pashinian’s 
spokesman, Vladimir Karapetian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “The 
environment minister presented the existing situation, and I think that the 
decision will be made by the cabinet.”
Karapetian said the situation will become clearer in the coming weeks.
According to the statement, Pashinian and the officials discussed “procedures” 
for the possible conduct of a new environmental impact assessment, “legal 
aspects of the issue” and “the emergence of new ecological factors.” Pashinian 
then told the relevant state bodies to “work in a coordinated manner for having 
a comprehensive analysis and complete data for the investigation,” the 
statement added without elaborating.
Lydian rejected ELARD’s verbal comments on Amulsar and accused the Beirut-based 
consultancy of misleading the Armenian government on August 30. It again argued 
that its environmental impact assessments had been certified by more 
authoritative Western experts.
All roads leading to Amulsar have been blocked by several dozen protesters 
since June 2018. They want the government to pull the plug on the project, 
saying that it would contaminate water, air and soil in the area.
Lydian, which claims to have invested $400 million in Amulsar, maintains that 
it would use modern technology that would prevent damage to the ecosystem. The 
company has repeatedly demanded that the authorities put an end to what it sees 
as an illegal blockade. In March, it threatened international legal action 
against Armenia.
Constitutional Court Partly Accepts Kocharian’s Appeal
        • Naira Bulghadarian
        • Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia -- Constitutional Court Chairman Hrayr Tovmasian (C) reads out a ruling 
on an appeal lodged by former President Robert Kocharian, Yerevan, September 4, 
2019.
Armenia’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday declared unconstitutional a legal 
provision that has been used by law-enforcement authorities for arresting and 
prosecuting former President Robert Kocharian.
Kocharian’s lawyers had challenged the legality of two articles of the Armenian 
Code of Procedural Justice invoked by investigators accusing him of taking 
bribes and overthrowing the constitutional order shortly before the end of his 
decade-long rule in 2008.
The court ruled that one of those articles is unconstitutional because it does 
not take account of current and former senior Armenian officials’ immunity from 
prosecution guaranteed by the Armenian constitution. But it dismissed the 
defense lawyers’ objections to the other clause that spells out legal grounds 
for arresting criminal suspects.
The ruling was signed by six of the nine Constitutional Court judges, including 
the court chairman, Hrayr Tovmasian. Two other judges wrote dissenting opinions 
that were not immediately made public.
The ninth judge, Vahe Grigorian, was excluded from the consideration of 
Kocharian’s appeal because of having previously represented relatives of the 
eight protesters killed in the March 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan. 
Kocharian and three retired Armenian generals stand accused of illegally using 
the armed forces against opposition supporters who demanded the rerun of a 
disputed presidential election. They all deny the accusation.
Speaking to reporters, one of Kocharian’s lawyers, Aram Vartevanian, seemed 
satisfied with the Constitutional Court verdict read out by Tovmasian. 
Vartevanian said the ruling means that Kocharian’s arrest constituted a 
“violation of his constitutional rights” and that the ex-president should 
therefore be released from jail.
Asked whether he believes his client must also be cleared of the coup charges, 
Vartevanian said: “We will be able to answer this question only after 
familiarizing ourselves with the full text of the court’s decision.”
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian talks to reporters outside a 
prison in Yerevan, June 25, 2019.
Armenian prosecutors and the Special Investigative Service (SIS), which 
indicted Kocharian in July 2018, did not immediately react to the court ruling.
The ruling’s significance was downplayed by Alen Simonian, a deputy parliament 
speaker and close associate of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. He insisted that 
the high court’s decision to uphold the other Code of Procedural Justice 
article means that the ex-president’s release is “out of question.”
“Nevertheless, we have to wait for the publication of the full text,” Simonian 
added in comments to RFE/RL’s Armenians service. “At this point any further 
comment on the decision published today would be wrong in the legal and all 
other senses.”
Simonian also took a swipe at Tovmasian, saying he and most ordinary Armenians 
“have no confidence” in the court chairman installed by the country’s former 
leadership. He claimed that Tovmasian had personally benefited from the March 
2008 bloodshed and cannot make impartial decisions on the Kocharian case.
In July, Pashinian accused Tovmasian of cutting political deals with 
Kocharian’s successor, Serzh Sarkisian, to “privatize” Armenia’s highest court. 
Tovmasian responded by warning the government against attempting to force him 
and his colleagues to resign.
Kocharian was set free five days after the start of his trial in May. A 
district court judge presiding over it, Davit Grigorian, further angered 
government supporters with his decision to suspend the trial and ask the 
Constitutional Court to rule on the legality of the charges brought against the 
ex-president.
Kocharian was arrested again after Armenia’s Court of Appeals overturned 
Grigorian’s decisions in late June. Law-enforcement authorities charged 
Grigorian with forgery in the following weeks. The judge was suspended as a 
result.
The case was then assigned to another judge, Anna Danibekian. She is due to 
resume Kocharian’s trial on September 12.
Press Review
“Zhoghovurd” says that former President Robert Kocharian’s conviction and 
imprisonment is inevitable because “anyone who committed crimes must be held 
accountable sooner or later regardless of their status and chronology.” “This 
fact has been established as a reality during Nikol Pashinian’s rule,” writes 
the pro-government paper. It goes on to lambaste Pashinian’s Health Minister 
Arsen Torosian for refusing to “face up to the reality” and “fleeing” from a 
news conference held by him on Tuesday.
“Zhamanak” says that Kocharian’s continued arrest depends on the Constitutional 
Court’s upcoming ruling on one of his appeals. “If the Constitutional Court 
decides that there is a problem [with his arrest and prosecution] it will 
effectively mean that Robert Kocharian has to be freed before his trial resumes 
on September 12,” writes the paper. “That would in turn mean a new political 
situation which could somewhat lose the current authorities the confidence of 
radically-minded strata of the society. Against that background, Armenia is due 
to host a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) summit which will be attended by 
Russian President Vladimir Putin.” The paper points to rumors about Putin’s 
possible boycott of the summit in case Kocharian is not released from custody.
“Aravot” comments on angry verbal exchanges between Kocharian’s supporters and 
detractors. “The problem is not so much Kocharian’s being or not being in jail 
as the fact that just like many other phenomena this case has become an 
occasion to split the society,” editorializes the paper. “Just like Amulsar, 
just like the Istanbul Convention, just like any major political development. 
Generally speaking, those who have made Levon Ter-Petrosian, Robert Kocharian, 
Serzh Sarkisian and Nikol Pashinian subjects of hatred are most active in the 
social life these days. The voices of other people are not heard, while the 
haters demonstrate remarkable unity. Unity should be displayed on other issues 
relating to national interests. In the United States, for example, [President 
Donald] Trump’s supporters and opponents are united on some key issues.”
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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