An extended session of the collegium was held under the chairmanship of the General Prosecutor of the Republic of Armenia Anna Vardapetyan, during which the results of the activities of the Prosecutor’s Office in 2022 were summarized.
General Prosecutor Anna Vardapetyan thanked the prosecutors for their long work, dedication and diligence at the beginning of the session of the collegium, stressing that thanks to this work, the activity of the prosecutor’s system is visible and meaningfully perceptible to the public.
“The Prosecutor’s Office has assumed the role of a locomotive in the context of the new Criminal Procedure Code, setting a new pace for investigating cases. we should not slow down the process of this investigation”, emphasized Anna Vardapetyan and thanked the family of prosecutors for understanding the importance of the work being done and approaching with understanding.
Then, according to the sectors, the deputy prosecutors presented the general state of crime recorded in the republic during the previous year, the trend, the problems and the proposed solutions.
Deputy Prosecutor General Artur Poghosyan, presenting the work carried out by the Department of Crimes Against the State Authority of the Prosecutor General’s Office, noted that in 2022 the total property damage caused by completed corruption cases amounted to 2 billion 212 million 270 thousand 175 drams (in 2021: 4 billion 548 million 233 thousand 348 drams). 872 million 275 thousand 480 drams were recovered in 2022 (400 million 51 thousand 30 drams in 2021).
The total damage caused by the criminal cases investigated and completed in court was 215 million 194 thousand 989 AMD, of which 204 million 652 thousand 203 AMD was recovered (in 2021, the amount of damage was 551 million 44 thousand 294 AMD, of which 43 million 712 thousand 747 AMD was recovered) ).
Artur Poghosyan, referring to the work of the department of control over the legality of pre-trial proceedings in the National Security Service of the General Prosecutor’s Office, noted that the damage caused to the state and communities by the cases of direct control by the prosecutors of the Department amounted to 7 billion 739 million 13 thousand 669 drams (in 2021: 10 billion 786 million 808 thousand 57 drams), 5 billion 16 million 621 thousand 159 drams were recovered.
According to Deputy Prosecutor General Gevorg Baghdasaryan, the trend of individual crimes in 2022 is determined not so much by their increase or decrease, but by the change in the characteristics of crimes under the Criminal Code, which came into force on July 1, 2022.
In 2022, 37 thousand 612 cases of crime were registered in the republic (in 2021: 30 thousand 245). 881 cases of particularly serious crime were registered, the increase is 531, and according to Gevorg Baghdasaryan, the 151.7 percent increase is not real, because 485 out of 531 are sudden deaths.
In 2022, 15 percent of the total number of recorded crimes were crimes against people: 6,565 cases (in 2021: 4,375 cases).
In 2022, the number of murders is six times higher, and the murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 0.51, which is lower than the annual average of the last ten years.
Gevorg Baghdasaryan also referred to cases of violence in the family. According to him, they decreased by 143. 357 cases were recorded (500 in 2021), of which 231 were committed by the husband against the wife. As a rule, the majority of violence in the family is cases of beating or other violent actions. 249 such cases were recorded.
In the reporting year, crimes against property made up 36.7% of the cases of crimes recorded in the republic. In 2022, 13 thousand 903 cases of property crimes were recorded (in 2021: 15 thousand 149). cases decreased by 1246 or by 8.2%.
Referring to the fight against the criminal subculture, Gevorg Baghdasaryan noted that 25 cases related to the subculture were recorded in 2022 (14 cases in 2021). According to the deputy attorney general, the increase in these crimes with a high level of latency does not imply an actual increase in their number, but an improvement in the detection rate.
Srbuhi Galyan, Deputy Coordinator of the Prosecutor General’s Department of Illegal Property Confiscation, presented the results of 2022 activities, noting that 21 of the 33 lawsuits currently in court proceedings were sent to the court in 2022. With 21 lawsuits, more than 200 immovable and about 45 movable properties, as well as participation in 45 legal entities, are requested to be confiscated in favor of the state. The amount of money subject to confiscation is about 51 billion 360 million drams. In 2022, the sum of the claimants of the lawsuits filed is about 100 billion drams (during 2021, three lawsuits were submitted to the court by the department regarding the confiscation of property of illegal origin with a claim of 10 billion drams).
According to Galyan, the amount of the claim required by the lawsuits currently pending in the court already exceeds 150 billion drams (the claim does not include the market value of participations in legal entities, which has a tendency to increase).
Deputy Prosecutor General Srbuhi Galyan presented two of the largest lawsuits of 2022, one of which demanded the confiscation of five immovable and three movable properties, participation in three legal entities, as well as around 18 billion drams. In another lawsuit, a demand was made to confiscate 36 immovable and one movable property, participation in 10 legal entities, as well as more than 6 billion drams.
In 2022, with the preliminary results of the study, 109 preliminary summaries of the study results were prepared. 51 investigations have revealed property of alleged illegal origin exceeding 50 million drams provided by law: 65 movable and more than 460 immovable properties, as well as participations in about 100 legal entities and more than 92 billion drams. Within the framework of 43 of the mentioned studies, 52 applications for the application of measures of preliminary security of the claim were submitted to the court, which were satisfied by the court and the decisions were sent for enforcement. About 600 properties have been foreclosed on.
Deputy Prosecutor General Anahit Manasyan referred to the results of the work carried out in the fields of legal provision and international-legal cooperation. According to Anahit Manasyan, during the reporting period, 14 legislative initiatives related to the field of criminal justice were prepared and sent to competent state bodies.
In 2022, 22 disciplinary proceedings were conducted against 30 prosecutors. A “reprimand” was imposed on 12 prosecutors, a “severe reprimand” was imposed on three prosecutors, and a “demotion by one level” was imposed on one prosecutor (as a result of separate disciplinary proceedings initiated against the same prosecutor, a “dismissal” disciplinary penalty was imposed on the latter ).
Deputy Prosecutor General Manasyan emphasized the need to provide a systematic solution to the problems in the field, referred to the problems raised in the field of international investigation and the measures taken to solve them.
Deputy General Prosecutor of RA, military prosecutor Grigor Elizbaryan presented the results and analyzes of the work done in 2022.
During 2022, 4 thousand 570 cases were recorded in the military units of the RA Armed Forces and other troops (6 thousand 195 in 2021). cases decreased by 1,625. Of them, 2,874 were accidents and misdemeanors, 1,696 were crimes, including 1,028 military ones, 668 of other general nature.
Compared to 2021, accidents decreased by 1186 cases, crimes by 376. Moreover, military crimes decreased by 450, and other general crimes increased by 74. If 32.7% of the crimes recorded in 2021 were serious and especially serious, then in 2022 serious and especially serious crimes made up 17.8% of the 1,696 crimes recorded in 2022. Compared to 2021, serious crimes in 2022 decreased by 100 cases, and particularly serious crimes by 328.
At the end of the extended session of the collegium, the swearing-in ceremony of RA Deputy Prosecutor General Anahit Manasyan and the prosecutors assuming the position of prosecutor for the first time took place.
By the order of the Prosecutor General, Anahit Manasyan was awarded the class rank of a first-class advisor of justice (according to Article 46, Part 1 of the RA Law “On Prosecution”, when appointed to the position of Prosecutor, the prosecutor is awarded the minimum class rank corresponding to the given position defined by Article 45 of the law ).
The Prosecutor General of the Republic Anna Vardapetyan congratulated the prosecutors who assumed the position and promised. “It won’t be easy, but it will be very interesting.” Anna Vardapetyan expressed hope that years later, when summarizing the joint work, they will record that more than half of what was planned has been implemented, leaving an institutional trace, points of irreversibility in a positive sense.
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