Ministry of Justice of Armenia explains reasons for refusal to  register party of former Defense Minister 

ArmInfo.The Ministry of Justice of Armenia explained the reasons for the refusal to register the  All-Armenian Front party recently established by former Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia Arshak Karapetyan.

"The application for state registration of the new formed party,  submitted to the Agency of the State Register of Legal Entities on  April 19, 2024, was returned by the agency on May 16, 2024 on the  basis of non-compliance with the requirements established by the  constitutional law "On parties", as well as the law "On state  registration of legal entities, designated divisions, institutions  and individual entrepreneurs", therefore, on the substantive grounds  provided for by the law on state registration of the party", the  department's explanation reads.

In particular, according to the law, the decision to establish a  party is considered adopted if the majority of participants in the  founding congress of the party, but not less than 300 founders, vote  for this decision. The All-Armenian Front movement in the minutes of  the founding congress of April 5, attached to the application, did  not provide information about the participation of 300 founders.  Consequently, the requirement of this norm was violated.

"According to the Civil Code, the location of a legal entity and the  location of its permanent body must be identical. The applicant  indicated in the certificate submitted by him to the agency of the  state register of legal entities, and in the party charter, instead  of the same address, different addresses, which violated the  specified requirement of the law. Moreover, the home address of the  party's General Secretary Hovhannes Shahinyan was indicated as the  location of the legal entity," the Ministry of Justice noted.  At the  same time, according to the law, for the purpose of state  registration, the party, if any, submits information about the  territorial divisions of the party to the authorized state body. The  applicant party provided for territorial divisions in its charter,  but at the time of filing the application for state registration it  did not provide the information required by law about its territorial  divisions, which violated the requirement of this norm.

In addition to these violations, there were a number of other  substantive shortcomings in the submitted documents, for example, the  constitutional law "On Parties" clearly establishes the wording that  is mandatory to be indicated in the charter, while the applicant did  not include a number of mandatory definitions in its charter.

"Based on the rules below, it is obvious that the refusal of the  Agency of the State Register of Legal Entities to register a party  has no grounds other than legal reasons," the message says, obviously  meaning "the abovementiond" and not "the ones below".

On March 6 of this year, Former Minister of Defense of the Republic  of Armenia Arshak Karapetyan (was appointed Minister of Defense on  August 2, 2021, and on November 15 of the same year he was relieved  of his post) decided to reformat the All-Armenian Front movement into  a party. The ex-minister justified his decision by the growing  interest of the Armenian public in the movement he initiated, the  readiness to engage in active political struggle and the desire to  come to power through party struggle. The founding congress of the  All-Armenian Front party took place in early April 2024. The party  leader himself, Arshak Karapetyan, participated in it remotely.  According to media reports, he is now in Russia.

On March 12 this year, at a press conference, Prime Minister Nikol  Pashinyan said: "Arshak Karapetyan is the Minister of Defense who has  served the shortest term. He was the first deputy chief of the  General Staff, when the events of May 2021 took place, then he was  the Minister of Defense, when the events of November 2021 took place.  I decided to dismiss him, on the morning of November 14, 2021, when  he reported to me that everything was calm along the border, while at  the time of his report, Azerbaijani troops had invaded the territory  of the Republic of Armenia in a number of sections of our border and  even took positions. Being the Minister of Defense, he either did not  know about this, or or being aware of it, did not report it; in such  circumstances I will not tolerate anyone".