The Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia has issued a statement stating that examination of the advisory opinion of the Venice Commission based on the application of the Constitutional Court of Armenia goes to show that, contrary to the claims, there are no judgments on uncertainty of the norm defining corpus delicti of overthrow of the constitutional order (prescribed by Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code of Armenia) in the advisory opinion.
Moreover, the Venice Commission’s stances also affirm the viability and rightfulness of the legal interpretations underlying the charge brought against second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and within the scope of defense of that charge.
The Venice Commission stated that there are no common approaches in international practice with regard to the formulation of crimes against the constitutional order. It is important to stress the fact recorded by the Commission according to which, in most member States, statutory provisions do not provide any legal definition of the concept of constitutional order or what would constitute overthrowing the constitutional order or the usurpation of power.
The Commission also states that the more broadly worded acts such as high treason, insurrection and/or rebellion usually require an element of violence, force or threat.
Finally, the Venice Commission stated that, with respect to the prohibition of retroactivity of criminal laws and the requirement of providing sufficiently clear and precise definitions of criminal acts in laws, criticisms of imprecisions regarding the concepts of constitutional order and the overthrowing of the constitutional order might be appeased in the knowledge that there seems to be a convergence among the member States of the Venice Commission to leave these concepts undefined or imprecise.
The aforementioned allows us to come to the conclusion that the formulations of corpus delicti for overthrow of constitutional order provided in the criminal codes of member (and non-member) states are not more definite than the formulations prescribed by previous Article 300 of the Criminal Code of Armenia and the current Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code of Armenia. In any case, the concepts of “constitutional order” or “overthrow of the constitutional order” are not prescribed by law. Moreover, the interpretation of Robert Kocharyan’s attorneys that the terminological differences in the legislation studied by the Commission also attest to the uncertainty of the elements of the corpus delicti, is groundless.
