An extraordinary session to discuss an extraordinary issue
By Karine MANGASSARIAN

Yerkir.am
July 07, 2006

People have been organizing protest actions in from of the Government’s
building, the President’s house, the office of the Ombudsman protesting
against unlawful alienation of their property and incommensurate
compensation for the alienated property.

The draft law on "Alienation of property for state and public needs"
proposed by the government at yesterday’s extraordinary session of
the National Assembly attempts to regulate these processes through
a special law. However, this law cannot be enacted retrospectively
and will not affect the alienation deals that were concluded before
the adoption of the law.

The draft law was presented by the Minister of Justice Davit
Harutyunian. As could be expected, the political forces in the
parliament had a very heated reaction to the draft.

Even though the necessity for having such a law was stressed the
parliamentary opposition proposed to withdraw the draft from the
parliament since it is a source of a series of disagreements and
contradictions. Chairman of the National Assembly Tigran Torossian
believes the opposition’s approach is wrong. He noted the National
Assembly should not shriek the responsibility but should do its best
to improve the law.

Head of ARF’s parliamentary faction Hrayr Karapetian answered the
question whether the draft is so bad that the government should
withdraw it from the National Assembly or the National Assembly
should work on amending and improving the draft. Karapetian noted,
"The processes that take place in our country and this sector are
not regulated by the law.

There should be laws to regulate these processes. It is not a
secret that the development of the Northern Avenue has raised
justified concerns of the population of Byuzand street and Yerevan
in general. There is not a single deputy in the National Assembly
to whom residents of Yerevan do not turn with complaints regarding
alienation of their property for state and public needs. Therefore,
the need for having such a law is obvious."

The reason for elaborating the law was that the Constitutional Court
has recently examined the issue. The decision of the Constitutional
Court was that the National Assembly should adopt a law on "Alienation
of property for state and public needs".

Commenting on the substance of the law, Karapetian noted that the issue
is regulated by the law and not governmental decrees. "Once the law is
adopted, there will be no questions as to the criteria for estimating
the cost of the buildings because the law clearly stipulates that the
property should be estimated based on the current market price plus 5%
to reflect possible fluctuations of the market price.

And most importantly, the law should correspond to the international
conventions on human rights to avoid instance when people appeal to the
European Court of Human Rights to protect their rights and interests,"
Karapetian noted. He believes the most important thing is to ensure
that state interests and public interests should not interfere or be
in conflict with the property rights of individual citizens.

"Now the law clearly stipulates that there should be no such
contradictions, and even if they occur, the law states that everything
should be done to settle such incidents in favor of the interests
of citizens," Karapetian noted informing that ARF’s parliamentary
faction will soon present its proposals. One of the proposals to be
made by ARF’s faction is that decisions on alienation of property
for state and public interests should be made by the state and not
by individuals or some organizations.