Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

The Court upheld Arman Ghalechyan’s application against the State Revenue Committee and recognized invalid the administrative act made by the SRC.

On 28 July 2020, 2 persons visited Arman Ghalechyan’s trailer - where he was to conduct entrepreneurial activity - and presented themselves as tax officers. They urged A.Ghalechyan’s father to take measures and register as a private entrepreneur to ensure legality of their further activity.

One of the officers persuaded A.Ghalechyan’s father and then A.Ghalechyan himself to sign a document, which, as they claimed, was not about recording a violation, as they assured that they were not conducting any entrepreneurial activity at the moment, rather, they were selling their vegetable crops - grown by themselves - and were planning to work only after officially registering. However, as it turned out, they recorded that they worked for the period of 22.07.2020-03.08.2020 and received entrepreneurial income in the amount of AMD 112,000. Actually, Arman Ghalechyan’s father and then Arman Ghalechyan himself signed an illegal and ungrounded protocol on violations made by themselves.

Then, A.Ghalechyan had to suspend his entrepreneurial activity, since the purchased fruit and the vegetable grown on his own land got rotten as he tested positive for Covid-19. 

Finding the act entirely groundless, A. Ghalechyan, with the support of HCA Vanadzor, applied to Court claiming to recognize it invalid. HCA Vanadzor advocates Arayik Zalyan and Nushik Ter-Movsisyan undertook protection of his rights.

On 16 June 2021, the RA Administrative Court, examining and assessing the evidence obtained in the frame of the case, made a judgment to uphold the claim, taking into account that RA Tax Code Article on detecting illegal activity does not apply  to persons directly engaged in production and sale of agricultural products, i.e., when an individual produces agricultural products and sells the agricultural product produced by himself, such activity is not considered illegal and is not fined. A. Ghalechyan presented enough evidence that during that period he also sold vegetables of his own land, and the Committee did not substantiate the condition that the mentioned vegetable was not produced immediately by Arman Ghalechyan. The Court also stressed that the Committee had the burden of proving the facts that served as ground for them to make the administrative act but did not fulfill the obligation and did not prove the condition that the agricultural products sold by A. Ghalechyan had not been produced immediately by the plaintiff.

The administrative body has an obligation to ensure the comprehensive, complete and objective investigation into the case in order to discover all the circumstances, including those in favor of participants of the proceedings. By ensuring adherence to laws, violations of human rights will be excluded and the ongoing practice of making acts by violating laws will cease.