ArmInfo. The Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia sees no reason to release the second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and to close the criminal case brought against him. This is stated in the response of the Prosecutor General's Office to the request of the "Armenpress" state news agency.
The Prosecutor General's Office notes that the decision of the Constitutional Court of September 4, 2019 SDO-1476 was given comments that are based on individual observations of its individual paragraphs and do not follow from the meaning of the decision.
"The former president is not charged with committing such actions that would be based on his authority. The accusation does not concern his immunity, that is, the actions attributed to him cannot be considered as proceeding from his status", the agency explained, continuing that from the above it is obvious that the Constitutional Court, merely stated that there is no special procedure under which this issue should be the subject of an independent and separate discussion, and the issue of whether the alleged actions are connected with the status of the president or not should be solved. By this the Court has more than clearly defined that the issue of availability of functional- immunity should be evaluated and resolved in the framework of the general criminal procedural regulation by an investigator or prosecutor in pre-trial proceedings and by the court in court proceedings".
Regarding the recognition by the decision of the Constitutional Court of Article 35 of the Code of Criminal Procedure as contrary to the Constitution and invalid, the prosecutor general's office explained that the functional inviolability envisaged by the article 35 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is not considered as a circumstance excluding criminal proceedings.
"Therefore, in all those cases when it turns out that criminal prosecution is incompatible with the functional inviolability of a person, the competent authority will objectively be deprived of the legal opportunity not to initiate criminal prosecution of that person or to terminate the criminal prosecution already initiated, as well as to make a lawful decision not to use arrest since there is no procedural basis for making such a decision.
The indictment brought against Robert Kocharian satisfies the additional and preliminary mandatory requirement of lawfulness. The accusation brought against the latter is not connected with his functional integrity, namely: the acts incriminated to him cannot be considered as arising from the status of the latter. Consequently, the Armenian Prosecutor's Office believes that there is no reason to stop the criminal prosecution brought against Robert Kocharyan by force of a decision of the Constitutional Court, " the explanatory letter of the Armenian prosecutor's office reads.
To note, Kocharyan's defense submitted a motion to the court of general jurisdiction of Yerevan on Saturday to immediately release the former head of state from arrest and stop the criminal prosecution against him.
To recall, on September 4, the Constitutional Court of Armenia granted the defense claim of Robert Kocharian - Article 35 of the RA Criminal Code is recognized as unconstitutional, since it does not provide for the functional inviolability of officials who are specially protected by the Constitution, including circumstances that exclude criminal proceedings or criminal prosecution. "This article is found to be contrary to clause 4 of part 1 of article 27, part 1 of article 61, part 1 of article 63, articles 75 of the Constitution", the Constitutional Court said in a decision. On the second appeal of Kocharyan's defense on the review of compliance with the Constitution of Part 2 of Article 135 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia, the Constitutional Court recognized it as complying with the country's basic law.
Thus, the Constitutional Court ruled that the verdicts adopted, in accordance with part 2 of Article 179 of the Constitution, are final and come into force from the moment they are published. To note, Robert Kocharyan was arrested on charges of overthrowing the constitutional order.