Hrayr Tovmasyan: "If All This Property Belongs to Me, Then I Am One of the Richest People in the Region"

Recently, media outlets reported on the properties belonging to Hrayr Tovmasyan, the President of the Constitutional Court. In a statement to 168.am, Tovmasyan clarified:

“When days, months ago, they wrote that soon it would be about my school years, I laughed, but now, no longer. Yesterday, I read some analysis regarding my properties, which some media outlets tried to make the number one news. The first thought that comes to mind is that each one judges by their own measure, and there is nothing one can do about it. By the way, as per custom, everything is poorly done: numbers, years, facts, ‘slips’ that are systematically multiplying in materials regarding me.

The first question that arises is: why, what are you doing, why are you so petty, why do you measure everyone with your yardstick? Understand that there are people in this world who are different from you, and there are many.

Before entering public service, I owned, aside from my parental home, one private house and three apartments. During my time in office, I sold one private house and two apartments in exchange for one apartment. Note that all these apartments and the private house belonged to me before I became an official. It can only be deemed foolish to claim that property was acquired in the names of relatives or friends in 2006 and 2009. For what purpose?

As for where I worked, how much income I had before taking office, it seems everyone is aware. Meanwhile, my income has only decreased after entering public service. Regarding one of my relatives gifting a car to one daughter and a garage to another, I would say that this relative lived in our house for 4-5 years and made the decision to gift that property before leaving for the United States to study.

By the way, that data is declared, published, and is not a secret.

Concerning the apartment next to mine, yes, that belongs to my wife's sister, whose family has not lived in Armenia since the 1980s. The apartment was purchased at my suggestion, and it is not their only property in Armenia.

I must disappoint some by saying that everything has been done incompletely. I have many relatives and friends both inside and outside the country who have acquired more than ten properties both before my tenure and during it. I think I should only be happy about this now, because if ‘all that property belongs to me,’ then I am one of the richest people in the region.”