YEREVAN. – The court of general jurisdiction of Yerevan is considering the matter of discontinuing the criminal case against second President Robert Kocharyan, former CSTO Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov, former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, and former Deputy PM Armen Gevorgyan under Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code of Armenia.

This respective motion was submitted to the court by the defense.

This is the second court trial after the Constitutional Court declared Article 300.1 (overthrow of the constitutional order) of the Criminal Code in conflict with Articles 78 (principle of proportionality) and 79 (principle of certainty) of the Constitution, and therefore invalidated it on March 26. It is not clear what kind of “overthrow” is in question, given that the aforesaid article was adopted under one constitution, and they had tried to amend it under another constitution.

The aforesaid defendants are charged under this very article of the Criminal Code.

In fact, the court needs to terminate these defendants’ criminal prosecution under the said article, as well as of others who are charged with similar charges in this criminal case.

Nonetheless, the court on Tuesday refused to discontinue this criminal prosecution, and adjourned the hearing due to the absence of the prosecution.