Non-conviction based confiscation of assets as a tool in fight against illegally acquired assets

Abstract

Armenia has entered a phase, where it is intended to foster the introduction of new mechanisms in fight against corruption. Unfortunately, the existing mechanisms are not forceful enough to reach significant results. Moreover, the imperfections of RA confiscation mechanism lead to certain legal deadlock, specifically, when the person who committed a crime has immunity, died, is hiding, or his identity is unknown, the confiscation of those assets will not be possible under current Armenian mechanisms. Thus, Armenia is currently struggling to find efficient and feasible mechanisms that will allow the relevant authorities to extract corrupted property in a manner that will not contradict human rights guarantees and will display anticipated results at the same time. Thus, the emphasis within this Paper is increasingly placed on the NCB asset confiscation mechanism, as it offers the necessary tools and measures to combat corruption offences and stop the circulation of proceeds of corruption, depriving offenders of illicit gains. However, the person who committed a crime and illegally acquired assets is not the main actor and the centre of criminal persecution, rather pursuit is circled around the property that has tainted origin. Simultaneously, NCB confiscation mechanism presents certain concepts unfamiliar to Armenian legal system. Moreover, those concepts are likely to result in human rights issues. Hence, the specific research question for this paper is whether NCBC of assets is applicable under Armenian regulations? The outcome of the research shows that, if for human rights protection is carefully guaranteed in the process, the NCBC mechanism may be applicable under Armenian regulations. Additionally, the Slovenian example may serve as a possible model for Armenia. To reach that conclusion, an extensive examination has been conducted within the paper.