In landmark anti-mafia ruling, Armenian court sets precedent on liability for ties to criminal underworld

Armenia’s Court of Cassation has issued a landmark, precedent-setting ruling clarifying what constitutes participation in or involvement with the “thieves’ world” (criminal underworld) under Article 324 of the Criminal Code.

The ruling was issued on August 28 in response to an appeal by the Prosecutor General’s Office and provides a systematic interpretation of offenses related to the criminal subculture.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Court of Cassation, interpreting the specifics of combating organized crime and the criminal subculture in light of international convention provisions and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, defined the main characteristics of a criminal-subculture group, or the criminal underworld.

The court noted that, from the perspective of legislative regulation, a criminal-subculture group and the criminal underworld, which the legislature uses as a synonym for the concept, are essentially identical and refer to the same phenomenon.

Therefore, within the scope of the aforementioned legal provision, a criminal-subculture group should be understood not as individual groups or groupings, but as the entire criminal underworld as a unified system, with its informal hierarchy, authorities and influence, operating according to rules of conduct established and recognized by it.

It is characterized by the “resolution of issues” through violence, intimidation and coercion. Moreover, the existence of the criminal underworld, as a generally known fact, does not itself require proof in criminal proceedings.

In other words, the body conducting the proceedings is not required to substantiate and prove the existence of the criminal underworld as a criminal-subculture system in each individual case.

Addressing the offense of involvement in achieving the objectives pursued by a criminal-subculture group, the Court of Cassation stated that this is manifested when a person who is not a member of the criminal-subculture group becomes involved in the objectives pursued by the group in any way and assists in their implementation.

In other words, such persons are outside the criminal hierarchy and do not belong to or participate in the criminal-subculture group, or the criminal underworld; they simply provide assistance in achieving its objectives.

The Court of Cassation emphasized that although sending parcels to correctional facilities is generally permitted by law and cannot, in itself, serve as a basis for establishing participation in or involvement with a criminal-subculture group, it may nevertheless have some significance when assessing the circumstances described above, taking into account the people to whom the parcels are sent, the frequency with which they are sent, as well as the nature of the relationship between the sender and recipient, for example, whether the recipient is not a close person or relative of the sender.

The Court of Cassation stated that a person acting according to the criminal subculture does not undertake to resolve a particular issue as a private individual, but as someone adhering to the customs of the criminal subculture, conditioning their actions on the ideology and objectives pursued within that phenomenon. Such actions therefore go beyond the scope of relations concerning property.

Since 2020, Armenia has outlawed involvement in the criminal subculture as well as assuming the status of a self-styled "thief-in-law."