David Khajakyan Appeals to Chief Prosecutor Demanding Criminal Case Initiation

David Khajakyan, the head of the Yerevan Council's "Light" faction, has submitted a report on a crime to the Chief Prosecutor of Armenia, Arthur Davtyan.

In his report, he states, "Dear Mr. Davtyan, on November 26 of this year, I made a statement at the regular session of the Yerevan Council and presented a report on the crime. In the statement, I outlined the significant circumstances, which I detail below. The matter is that from October 22 to November 8 of this year, Hayk Marutyan was on vacation. During Marutyan's vacation from October 22 to November 4, the first deputy mayor of Yerevan, Hrachya Sargsyan, acted as the mayor, based on Article 48 (2) of the 'Law on Local Self-Governance in Yerevan.' During the same period, on October 25, the first deputy mayor, acting mayor Hrachya Sargsyan, was sent abroad on the basis of decision No. 3975-A by the mayor, for the period from November 5 to 13.

As reported on the official website of the mayor's office, during the absence of Hayk Marutyan and Hrachya Sargsyan, the powers of the mayor were exercised by the deputy mayor, Hayk Sargsyan. Article 48 (2) of the aforementioned law clearly states that 'the first deputy mayor replaces the mayor during the latter's absence.' This is the exclusive competence of the first deputy mayor since he is a member of the council, thus being the only official in executive positions authorized to exercise the exclusive powers of the mayor, such as making and signing mayoral decisions and orders.

It follows from the presented circumstances and the law that deputy mayor Hayk Sargsyan cannot replace the mayor and is not authorized to exercise the exclusive powers of the mayor, particularly signing decisions and orders. However, we can see from the decisions and orders published on the official website of the mayor's office that during the specified period, Hayk Sargsyan signed more than 70 such documents. These actions are deemed to fall under Article 309 of the Criminal Code since Hayk Sargsyan executed a power that is not granted to him by law, thus exceeding his official powers.

Considering that his powers were transferred to Hayk Sargsyan without proper legal grounds, it should also be viewed as exceeding official powers by the mayor himself under the same article. Article 309 of the Criminal Code considers it an offense when a public official intentionally performs actions that are clearly beyond their powers and cause significant harm to the legal interests of society or the state.

During the same council session, the mayor's advisor, Karen Hambardzumyan, stated, “The law does not regulate the cases when, for certain reasons, the deputy mayor can also be absent. There can be many other circumstances at play…”. This indicates that the mayor's office acknowledged that the law does not regulate such situations when transferring powers to Hayk Sargsyan, which means that the action was carried out knowingly.

K. Hambardzumyan continued to clarify that nonetheless, “it was based on Article 48 (7) of the law on local self-governance in Yerevan that you (the mayor) instructed the first deputy mayor Hrachya Sargsyan to appoint a replacement Hayk Sargsyan for urgent cases or if he had to leave for a business trip.” Article 48 (7) establishes that “by the mayor's instruction, deputy mayors can also exercise other powers.” Based on this provision, the replacement of the mayor by Hayk Sargsyan is not only legally unfounded but also out of logical bounds since it implies that any person whom the mayor can delegate “other powers” could be granted the exclusive powers of the mayor.

If this logical deduction were hypothetically valid, the mayor could also delegate the authority of replacing him to assistants, which could lead to damage to the authority and respect of the position equivalent to replacements made by deputy mayors who do not hold the position of first deputy mayor.

Thus, based on the above, I find: a) the mayor has clearly overstepped his powers by designating Hrachya Sargsyan to appoint Hayk Sargsyan as the replacement; b) deputy mayor Hayk Sargsyan has clearly exceeded his powers by signing dozens of mayoral decisions and orders. I believe it is necessary to initiate a criminal case based on Article 309 of the Criminal Code to uncover the described circumstances and assess the harm caused to the legitimate interests of society and the state.