The law enacted two years ago allows prosecutors to seek asset forfeiture in case of having “sufficient grounds to suspect” that the market value of an individual’s properties exceeds their “legal income” by at least 50 million drams ($120,000).
Armenian courts can allow the nationalization of such assets even if their owners are not found guilty of corruption or other criminal offenses. The latter would have to prove the legality of their holdings.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly portrayed this as a major anti-corruption measure that will help his administration recover “wealth stolen from the people.” Opposition figures claim, however, that Pashinian is simply planning a far-reaching “redistribution of assets” to cement his hold on power.
Last November, lawmakers representing Armenia’s main opposition forces appealed to the Constitutional Court to declare the law in question unconstitutional. They said that it contradicts articles of the Armenian constitution guaranteeing the presumption of innocence and property rights.
The court has still not ruled on the appeal. It announced on July 8 that it has asked the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe for legal advice on the matter.
The Strasbourg-based organization’s press office told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Tuesday that the Venice Commission has not yet received the application from Armenia’s highest court.
Ara Ghazarian, an Armenian expert on international law, suggested that the commission is unlikely to recommend a blanket scrapping of the law sought by the opposition.
“Through its case law, the European Court [of Human Rights] has long given the green light to the adoption and enforcement of such laws, saying that they do not contradict the European Convention [on Human Rights] in principle,” argued Ghazarian. “The Venice Commission will draw conclusions along those lines.”
At the same time, he said, the commission could call for limiting retroactive application of the law and making it harder for the authorities to seize assets.
Armenian prosecutors have filed 12 asset forfeiture cases in courts to date. They involve about 200 properties and vehicles as well as 21 billion drams ($51 million) in cash belonging to former government or law-enforcement officials and/or their family members.
So far no court rulings have been handed down on any of those cases. There have been suggestions that judges dealing with them have serious misgivings about the legality of asset forfeiture.
The prosecutors have also secured court injunctions freezing a comparable amount of assets held by 25 other individuals or their relatives. The latter too will have to fight for their expensive properties, businesses and cash holdings in court.