Claim against Law on 1000 AMD was accepted: Ministry of Finance submitted a response to the claim
17:25, June 2, 2017 | News, Own news | Right to Property
The claim of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor staff members against the payment under the Law on the so-called 1000 AMD filed on March 21, 2017 was accepted by the General Jurisdiction Court of Kentron and Nork-Marash administrative districts of Yerevan city and the examination of the claim was scheduled for July 12, 2017, at 2: 30 pm.
The arguments brought forward in the claim include the concept of ill-grounded enrichment as set out in Article 1092 of the Civil Code of the Republic of Armenia; accordingly, by compulsory collection of 1000 AMD from the citizens, the RA Government violates the RA citizens’ right to property as laid down in the Constitution.
The other day, the Organization’s staff members got a response to the claim from the RA Ministry of Finance. The response to the claim mentions that transfer of 1000 AMD follows from the RA Law on Reimbursement of Damages Caused to the Life or Health of Servicemen while Protecting RA and only for that reason may not be considered illegal in any way in the sense of Article 1092 of the RA Civil Code.
N. Amatuni, representative of the Ministry of Finance, did not refer to any other arguments brought in the claim, including the contradiction of the Law provisions to the Constitution.
Particularly, no reference was made to the fact that the Law sets the fee of 1000 AMD as a stamp fee considered by the RA Constitution as compulsory fee and assumes that services are provided for it. Furthermore, the Ministry’s representative quotes provisions of the Law, but pays no attention to the fact that the Law also provides acquisition of stamps for the fee. In fact, the stamp-fee payers have no information about such stamps and get no service for their payment.
However, the representative of the Ministry of Finance considers the claim ill-founded and asks to reject it.
Note that HCA Vanadzor also applied to RA Human Rights Defender A. Tatoyan to challenge the constitutionality of the Law. He answered that the state provides the payer with direct or indirect services taking into account the servicemen’s function to protect the country’s borders and found no grounds to apply to the RA Constitutional Court.