One of last week’s most important events was the Armenian ombudsman’s successful debut at the RA Constitutional Court (CC). Everything was on the ombudsman’s side: all what was shown on TV channels, including the scenes where the ombudsman was actively trying to protect citizens’ rights, as well as the thoughts and opinions expressed by the RA justice minister. At the end of the whole thing, the CC made a decision and said that some governmental acts aimed towards moving citizens out of their apartments to build buildings were illegal. That’s it? After that, the naïve citizens simply applauded and this shows that the CC didn’t stop the violations but rather tried to legalize the violations committed by the government.
Bread and show!
Almost everyone knew that the CC would accept the ombudsman’s application because the state (high ranked officials) would not lose anything after it. Besides that our new history shows that if the head of the CC, Gagik Harutyunyan, says “yes”, this means that he is sure that he will not lose anything after it besides his reputation. But the problem is not the decision of the CC, but the fact that the authorities often show such demonstrations to the society to make them calm down. Everyone that was present there knew beforehand what kind of decision the CC would make. Some lawyers say that this was an attempt to cut down the number of such applications sent to the CC, as well as show this demonstration to the society to make them calm down. Even after showing the worried face of the Justice minister, some experts thought that this was an attempt to make David Harutyunyan’s reputation go down. The problem is here is why he was the one to represent the government that day and not someone else. According to expert of legal sciences, Hrayr Tovmasyan, anyone else could have represented the government at the CC that day, “You, me and any other lawyer. But in this case it would be bad of the government to send someone else to the CC when they had a minister of justice.” As for the press secretary of the justice ministry, Ara Saghatelyan, he doesn’t think that there is anything harming the minister’s reputation and says, “I don’t think this was an action against David Harutyunyan because, as we know, he is not involved in politics. Yes, it was an unpleasant thing for the minister: people didn’t benefit from it at all and the discussions concerned only theoretical things. Besides that if we look closer we will see that nothing harmed the minister’s reputation: whereas before 100 citizens had negative opinions about him, now this number is 130”.
What happened was what had to happen
“Anyone who is well-informed about our constitutional justice would not expect anything more”, assures Hrayr Tovmasyan, “I just think that the expectations of the people gathered near the CC doors were baseless”. According to Mr. Tovmasyan, before going to the CC the ombudsman had to prepare the people by letting them know that no concrete problems would be solved in the CC and they would only solve theoretical problems. “The problem is that the CC decisions don’t have any side-effects and don’t cover the legal relations justified before the decisions. These decisions cover only the fields directly connected with court proceedings. As for the cases of the Northern and Buzand streets, these contracts are of social and legal character. I think some of those citizens made a contract on their own, while others were obliged, others were just cheated, but no matter what, they have signed a contract”, he says. As for contracts, when a contract is already signed, this is already out of Article 31 of the RA Constitution. “The state often buys things from individuals and legal persons. You can either sell what you have or not. And if you don’t sell it, the state will take it from you anyway. But when you sell it the conflict is limited to civic relations, which is not a subject for a public conflict”. As for paying 10% from the reimbursement price as tax to the government, this is another problem. If we agree that the reimbursement was equal, anyway the 10% was not paid to citizens, thus violating the principle of equality.
The ombudsman was not well prepared
The problem is that the ombudsman generally didn’t write anything about the principle of equity. The subject of discussions proposed by him was to find out whether there was protection of public interests in the contracts or not. According to Mr. Tovmasyan this could be a very good topic for discussions, conferences, but in this case people were particularly interested in whether the reimbursement they had gotten was equivalent to the proposed sum or not. But in spite of this the mentioned issue was not discussed. “I think that if the defined terms of application are still valid, citizens can apply to the corresponding governmental body that made a decision on taking these 10% and get their 10% back”, thinks Mr. Tovmasyan. The CC noted that the sum that citizens got from selling their properties were not income and were not a subject of income tax. On the basis of the behavior of all parties and the CC decision we may assume that this whole demonstration had been planned out beforehand. In regard to this Mr. Tovmasyan says, “Anyhow, I don’t think this was a planned scenario to play. Please note that in the hall everyone thought that Armen Harutyunyan was protecting them and David Harutyunyan was their enemy. But if you look closer, you will see that David Harutyunyan only made one announcement, which is actually a chance for the citizens to get the 10%. He said that he would make the CC change its approach to this issue. David insisted on this. But A. Harutyunyan hadn’t said anything concerning this neither in his written application nor orally”. This means that A. Harutyunyan went to the CC without being prepared enough, “If I were in his place I would lead the case in another way in order to help citizens benefit more. Anyway, at the end people understood that David Harutyunyan didn’t do anything wrong to them”.
Never talk to strangers
Even though no one expects justice to solve anything in Armenia, it is quite possible that the citizens forced out of their apartments on Buzand and Northern streets may have enough legal background and knowledge. Let’s remember how it happened: the process started in 2000-2001. Citizens were offered money: $200-300 per cubic meter. This was the market price of that period. But the contract allowed the citizens to pay little by littlle. According to the contract, people had to get 30-40% at the beginning, some more money in 3-4 months, and the rest of it would be given to them in 7-8 months. But later they weren’t able to pay this money on time. During this period, the prices for apartments increased at a rapid pace and people were left out of their apartments. If these citizens had a good lawyer to advise them what to do, the issue of legitimacy of these contracts and citizens’ rights would not go on to be tried in court.
P.S. By the way, at the end of our conversation Mr. Tovmasyan said that it was quite possible that this was a show planned beforehand.