The Constitutional Court of Armenia has upheld the application submitted by Arnold Vardanyan, founding attorney of Arnold Law Company, obliging the Court of Cassation to reopen proceedings and to take measures aimed at restoring applicant Andranik Manukyan’s property rights.
In its Decision No. SDO-1879 of 1 July 2025, the Constitutional Court reviewed the constitutionality of several provisions of the Civil Code of Armenia in light of the constitutional and convention-based guarantees of property rights. The Court ruled that in cases of acquisitive prescription, procedural succession cannot transfer substantive rights and claims that did not exist at the moment of transfer.
As a result, the Court found that:
“The applicant’s deprivation of property occurred as a consequence of an interpretation of the disputed provisions which contradicted the requirement of Article 60(4) of the Constitution (‘in cases prescribed by law’).”
Even the National Assembly of Armenia, involved in the case as a Respondent, acknowledged the unconstitutionality of the interpretation given by the courts to the applicable provisions, at least in part.
The case concerns the property rights of applicant Andranik Manukyan over premises located at Tumanyan 2nd Passage 5, Yerevan, which had been unlawfully appropriated by a construction company.
A complaint regarding this case has also been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights.
The full text of the Constitutional Court’s decision is available at the following link:
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