Concern Dialog organised a seminar on May 19 for journalists to learn more about the law and current practices related to civil forfeiture. The workshop aimed to provide journalists with a better understanding of legal institutions and to support comprehensive and in-depth coverage of ongoing judicial processes.

A series of seminars will be held continuously, with representatives from various Armenian media outlets participating. At each meeting, specific legal issues related to current affairs and interesting from a journalism point of view will be discussed, taking into account the law firm's team's relevant experience and knowledge on these topics.

At the meeting, Aram Orbelyan, the firm's managing partner and an attorney, presented the legislation on civil forfeiture, the reasons for its development, the relevant international experience, and the risks from a human rights perspective. The discussions also covered the existing legislative gaps and internal contradictions, the problematic cases caused by them, and other circumstances and issues already encountered in practice. Specific attention was paid to the problems already identified during the ongoing cases, and possible rectifications and approaches were presented, which only in case of full implementation will enable legislation and practice ensuring the primacy of human rights and the rule of law.

"A situation has arisen that today completely legally created property can be seized from a person. Moreover, a person is forced to justify the legality of the property acquired before holding any position or committing an alleged crime in circumstances where no information has been preserved. For example, suppose a person is accused of a crime committed in 2015. In that case, the law enforcement agencies can and in practice will check the legality of even their properties acquired since the 1990s, and this is problematic in terms of procuring and presenting evidence," said Aram Orbelyan, emphasising that gathering evidence on the cases that occurred so many years ago is very difficult due to the lack of archives, including from government institutions. In some cases, the amount of alleged illegal property reaches ridiculously small numbers; for example, under one of the cases, the Prosecutor's Office demands to justify the source of AMD 7,500 paid in statutory capital of the company in 1998 by submitting relevant evidence.

The attorney separately referred to the issues of coverage under those cases, discussing with journalists specific examples and issues related to multi-faceted coverage, stressing that it is unacceptable to evaluate the legal process in view of the presumption of an already "determined result" - the presumption that a person being a lawbreaker, disregarding the legality of the process, the justification of the claim, the period of investigation, the available evidence base and other circumstances of the case.

The journalists also presented their approaches to the issues and coverage of the sector and asked specific questions about the issues and policies they have already encountered in their practice.