Armenia Court Case Could Erase Last Official Remnant of Nagorno-Karabakh Authorities

A court case in Armenia could soon decide the fate of what many consider the final official presence of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on Armenian soil.

At the center of the dispute is a large government compound in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. The 1,222-square-meter property has long been registered under the authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh — an indigenous Armenian region that was controlled by ethnic Armenians for decades but was occupied by Azerbaijan in 2023.

Armenian prosecutors are now asking the court to cancel that registration. If the court rules in their favor in May 2026, ownership of the compound would transfer to the Armenian government. This would effectively eliminate what appears to be the last officially recognized asset belonging to the former Karabakh administration inside Armenia.

Although the case technically concerns a property registration from 2007, it carries significant political weight. After Azerbaijan’s occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh in a military operation in 2023, the region’s Armenian leadership fled and its institutions collapsed. Since then, Armenian officials have signaled that no separate Karabakh government structures should continue operating within Armenia.

The legal challenge began in June 2025 after Armenia’s National Security Service reviewed the property’s registration and raised concerns about its legality. Prosecutors argued that important documents had only recently become available, allowing the case to move forward despite the long time that had passed.

The timing has drawn attention. In the months leading up to the lawsuit, Armenian authorities conducted searches and investigations involving individuals connected to the former Karabakh leadership, including at the disputed building itself.

The origins of the dispute date back to the late 1990s.

In 1997, Armenia’s government decided to transfer the property to the Karabakh authorities, who at the time operated as a self-declared republic closely tied to Armenia but not internationally recognized. In 2006, Yerevan’s mayor granted permanent land-use rights, and in 2007 the property was formally registered under the Karabakh administration.

Prosecutors now claim the transfer was legally flawed because no formal donation contract was signed. Without that document, they argue, the ownership transfer was incomplete.

Lawyers representing the former Karabakh office strongly dispute that claim.

Attorney Roman Yeritsyan argues that under the legal system in place at the time — based on Soviet-era civil law — the government’s decision alone was enough to establish ownership. He also notes that the law cited by prosecutors took effect in 1999, two years after the original transfer.

“The Armenian government voluntarily gave up ownership in 1997,” Yeritsyan said. “From that moment, it no longer had a legal claim to the property.”

Another contentious issue is that the court has refused to formally include the former Karabakh authorities as a party to the case, even though the property documents list them as the owners.

Judges ruled that the entity — often referred to as the Republic of Artsakh — is not clearly identifiable as a legal body today and that submitted documents did not prove anyone had authority to represent it. An appeals court upheld that decision in late 2025.

Yeritsyan called this a serious procedural problem.

“The court is considering taking property from an entity without allowing it to defend itself,” he said, arguing that this violates basic principles of due process.

The case is currently under review, with a decision expected in May 2026. Prosecutors have also suggested that a separate criminal investigation could follow, examining whether officials abused their authority when the property was originally registered.

If the court rules in favor of the government, Armenia would effectively reverse a decision made nearly three decades ago — and remove what many view as the last formal footprint of the former Nagorno-Karabakh leadership in the country.

The outcome could therefore carry symbolic importance far beyond a single piece of real estate, signaling whether any official trace of Karabakh’s former political institutions will continue to exist within Armenia.

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