Nobody has doubted the fact that the judicial system in Armenia with its three court instances is known for the Chief Prosecutor of Armenia Aghvan Hovsepyan for a long time. The accusers are not defending their accusations in court, rather they’re defending the court from the accused. The “audience” loses the opportunity to be amazed and journalists continue to draw parallels between this or that trial.
The last occasion was the trying for chief editor of “Times Yerevan” newspaper Arman Babajanyan. Many often compare that trial with that of the president’s bodyguard Kuku’s trial and get disappointed in the injustice. One of the president’s bodyguards was accused of murdering someone by “dragging him carelessly”. Of course, the other bodyguards wouldn’t want to see their colleague get a full sentence and create commotion just for a “minor crime” that he had committed during his service. They weren’t making announcements or printing anything in the presses, but they did warn the president that he may be in danger.
If we put aside moral ethics, that’s natural and logical. After realizing the long time that one of the bodyguards was forced to spend in jail, the others would obviously realize that someone would make his way up to the president step by step and tell him about the current judicial system of Armenia, transfer the illegal sentencing, give the name of the person that had bribed him and so forth.
So, by putting aside moral ethics, we realize that there is a clash of interests between the president and the bodyguards. The president wants to be protected, so does the bodyguard. But the police want to be protected too. The anonymous state official, from whom the person who has the opportunity to get close to the president should blame, wants to be protected. For the sake of the abovementioned, the law, rights and morals have been sacrificed.
Now we compare the trail of the chief editor of the oppositionist newspaper with the trial of Kuku, without even knowing what ties the two together.
The one thing both trials have in common is the feedback. We as Armenians feel that we’re unprotected when we see a chief editor of a newspaper get sentenced. We unite, we speak about freedom of speech and manage to give four years to our dear friend.
In general, why do courts reach a verdict for imprisonment? There are cases when the guilty is sentenced to be isolated from society so that he won’t commit another crime, which we can understand. Sometimes the criminal is sentenced to isolation so that the relatives of the criminal who have suffered don’t sue him. This can also be understood.
But both cases don’t mean anything for the trying of the chief editor of “Times Yerevan”. Arman Babajanyan can’t commit the same crime again, in other words, he can’t escape from the army by presenting false documents again. According to the accuser, the security of the Republic of Armenia is the victim here, which has lost yet another soldier. This is the kind of victim that can’t meet the guilty on the streets of Yerevan and kill him. So, why are they sentencing someone, who doesn’t even look or speak like a criminal? They’re sentencing him so that he doesn’t continue his job as a chief editor.
The feedback of the journalists was supposed to be based on moral ethics judging from the case of the bodyguard. We Armenians were supposed to give feedback based on a mechanism, which differs from “an eye for an eye”, rather we were supposed to discuss issues concerning the insecurity of journalists.
If we were to show that journalists are against violations of the laws, whether that be for escaping army service or getting off easy from police, justice would lose and citizen Arman Babajanyan’s escape would probably be perceived in the context of studying abroad and would free him from the courtroom.
However, the chief editor has been sentenced to four years in prison and that sentencing is also Armenians’ sentencing.