Our Constitutional Court Was More Catholic Than the Pope and Acted Completely Unpredictably: Arthur Davtyan

During a session in the National Assembly, MP Arusyak Julhakyan from the 'My Step' faction addressed the Prosecutor General Arthur Davtyan, indicating that the Constitutional Court had declared Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code unconstitutional. This decision signified that henceforth, the overthrow of the constitutional order in Armenia would not be a criminally punishable act, allowing for the cessation of criminal proceedings against the accused in the 'March 1' case.

“The legal community has split into two camps regarding this decision; one part was fascinated, proclaiming it a fantastic, genius decision, while the other labeled it a disgrace. Criticism was also heard against the prosecutor's office, stating that the act had been mischaracterized from the outset, or that a different article should have been applied. Share your opinion on the Constitutional Court's decision and the criticisms voiced,” Julhakyan asked.

Arthur Davtyan noted that the investigative body had acquired evidence on the basis of which charges were brought against individuals under Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code, and the prosecutor had received the decision, assessed it, and verified its legality.

“During the legality assessment of the decision, it became clear to us that the data obtained during the investigation evidently indicated that high-ranking individuals had exceeded their powers, committed criminal acts not involved in their authority, which resulted in consequences. We are currently searching for the article in the Criminal Code that corresponds to this act; in other words, we have conducted a criminal-legal qualification,” he stated.

He pointed out that the traditional or general norm in the Criminal Code is Article 309, which addresses the abuse of official powers and indicates severe consequences under its most serious interpretation. In practice, severe consequences have occurred even when a person was not killed and assessed as such.

“We were looking at the specific consequences arising from the abuse of these powers in the criminal case, discussing the overthrow and elimination of the constitutional order and foundational principles in Armenia. Naturally, there exists a specific special provision in the Criminal Code for this, namely Article 300.1. We assess that it is correct to characterize it as the investigative body did; we still affirm that this characterization is appropriate, because in the competition between general and specific norms, this is a well-known rule that needs to be evaluated by the specific norm,” Davtyan said.

Davtyan noted that this article is one of the exceptional articles in the Criminal Code that underwent reform after being adopted in 2003, with amendments made in 2009 when this norm was improved, including under the positive conclusion of the Venice Commission.

“How could the judicial body involved in inter-judicial proceedings or the prosecutor foresee the opposite outcome? We evaluated it correctly and went to court. You are well aware that our Constitutional Court also turned to the European Court and the Venice Commission, where our European colleagues clearly stated that to understand whether these norms are specific or not, the court examining the specific case must indicate whether it is clear to the individual what they are accused of based on the combination of factual data. However, allow me to say that our Constitutional Court was more Catholic than the Pope and acted completely unpredictably,” he concluded.