Accusations Hurled Between Former Notary Head and Public at Yerevan Press Conference

The notary division hasn’t been dissolved; a new department has been established at the ministry, which is called Notary and Control Offices. The decision by the government states that the notary’s work has been re-organized, said former head of the notary department at the RA Ministry of Justice Mariam Gaboyan. Note that in a few interviews recently, Gaboyan expressed her dissatisfaction with justice minister Hrayr Tovmasyan’s decision to re-arrange the notary department. Gaboyan called a press conference today to express her opinion to the public.

“As for me, I’m someone on reserve; I wasn’t dismissed. I’m not disputing this staff decision and I don’t intend to. I think that Hrayr Tovmasyan carried out these personnel changes by violating the law,” she said, advising journalists to confirm this violation on their own.

“I think that this an action directed against me, but I am yet unable to ascertain the roots of this,” she added.

During the press conference, Gaboyan was clearly nervous. Present at the press conference were individuals who were dissatisfied with the notary, including one young person who interrupted the press conference and shouted, “You’re a criminal, you deceive people!”

Gaboyan responded, “What can I say? He’s a sick person.”

“You’re the sick person,” retorted the young man.

Gaboyan, during the press conference, repeated a few times that she’s not a notarial officer, she doesn’t have a seal (to authorize documents) and she hasn’t made any transactions.

“I’m not a notary; thus, no citizen can approach me and ask me to notarize something. I’m a supervisor of notarial officers. As for Pzo, Pze, I don’t know; I don’t know anything. They say there’s the Federal Bureau, to check the notaries, what are the Federal Bureau members supposed to check in the notary office? They were to have checked whether that so-called Pzo has purchased property or not, made a transaction or not. But no one came and nothing was checked. What connection does Gaboyan have with this Pzo,” she said, referring to herself in third person and Armen Kazarkian (who goes by the name “Pzo”), the Armenian-American ringleader behind the much-publicized Medicare scam in the US. Local media last year reported that the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) were to have come to Armenia to check the transactions that Armen Kazarian notarized in Armenia.

During the press conference, Gaboyan also stated that many officials in Armenia “having money, carrying out notarial transactions, are not disposed toward making state payments.” When journalists asked who these officials might be, Gaboyan said, “I won’t give names; I’m saying the notarial officers’ opinions — consider this a baseless statement.”