The Armenian opposition succeeded on Wednesday in blocking a controversial
bill that would uphold the government’s power to confiscate real property and
give it to private developers by citing “state needs.”

The government lacked only four votes to push the bill through parliament in the
second reading. Poor attendance of the parliament session appears to have been
instrumental in its rare setback in the overwhelmingly loyal National Assembly.

The draft law is supposed to regulate continuing demolitions of old parts of
central Yerevan that has been the scene of a massive redevelopment in recent
years. They have sparked angry protests by scores of people who have been
evicted from their now demolished homes and claim to have not been properly
compensated by the state.

The Armenian constitution stipulates that private property can be taken away by
the state “only in exceptional cases involving overriding public interests, in a
manner defined by law, and with a prior commensurate compensation.” However, the
process has so far been regulated only by government directives. Armenia’s
Constitutional Court effectively declared it illegal in April, but stopped short
of ordering the authorities to return the increasingly expensive land to their
former owners.

The government came up with the bill in response to the court ruling. The bill,
if passed, will allow it to continue to tear down old houses by invoking “needs
of the public and the state.” It was endorsed by the parliament factions of the
governing Republican Party and Armenian Revolutionary Federation.

But the opposition minority has fiercely resisted the proposed legislation,
saying that the process would remain highly discretionary and result in more
arbitrary practices. Opposition lawmakers were unconvinced even by a legal
provision stipulating that financial compensation paid to house owners must be
at least 10 percent higher than the market value of the confiscated properties.



The property valuation is already supposed to be market-based. However, many
displaced families believe that their homes were worth much more than the modest
sums they have received from the state.

By Hovannes Shoghikian