During the recent years Armenia has started to lose more cases in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Most of the applications sent to the ECHR concern the 6th provision of the European convention protecting the right to fair trial. The submitted cases show that people mostly accuse the judicial bodies in unfair treatment of trial. For example, those write that during an investigation people have been illegally kept under custody for 6, 8 or 10 months without compensation of moral damage. A couple of days ago the ECHR satisfied the cases submitted by two citizens – Kamo Piruzyan and Vardan Malkhasyan.
Kamo Piruzyan’s representative Lusine Sahakyan says that during 9 months and 21 court trials to keep the accused person under custody in the presence of his family and friends is a humiliating treatment on the part of the judicial institution. The case submitted to the ECHR also writes about illegal arrest and abuse of the right for releasing against bail or guarantee. The ECHR accepted the compliant and resolved that the 3rd and 5th provisions of the convention have been violated (prohibition of intimidation, right for freedom and immunity). The ECHR has also approved the case of political prisoner Vardan Malkhasyan. The ECHR resolved that for Malkhasyan the judicial body had violated the 5th provision of the European convention (right for freedom). V. Malkhasyan was abused under the article 301 in 2006 for “mass announcements for the purpose of restoring the RA constitutional order through violence”, which ended up with two years of imprisonment. In case of Piruzyan the ECHR resolved that he would receive 8,000 Euros compensation for moral damage to be received from the RA government, and Malkhasyan would be entitled to receive 4,500 Euros compensation for moral damage.
The ECHR resolutions show that in all those cases those people suffered as a result of illegal actions on the part of the investigation bodies. We talked to Pargev Ohanyan, who is a former judge, the incumbent head of “Presumption” law office and a lecturer, who said that his opinion about these cases “were ideally identical with the conclusions and resolutions of the ECHR”. According to him, most of the problems in the justice system of Armenia stem out of the existence of investigation considered to be a pre-investigation phase and the actions of investigation departments. “The problem is that during initial investigation the lawyer and advocate is not even entitled or allowed to see his client and talk to him. Even he does not have any rights to raise objections till the end of the investigation. This means that the accusation is already made and confirmed at the time when the advocate starts working, which is a big problem. Even the advocate can submit objections before the start of the judicial proceeding, failure to do the work in a duly manner and the investigators’ arbitrary behavior and independence, as well as the prosecutor’s “patronage” do not make it possible to provide effectiveness of this phase,” says the lawyer.
Pargev Ohanyan says that the activities that the investigation bodies are doing are fully enough for comprehensive and objective treatment of the case. Thus, he believes that if the right of giving an accusation conclusion and questioning witnesses is taken from them, giving the first right to the investigation body and the second one to the court, the problem will be solved. “What does make it impossible for us to adopt Georgia’s model, which gives a great effectiveness to the judicial system? Today the investigators have the right even to cancel cases due to certain reasons, which in fact should be done by the court only because that is the one that makes justice and can resolve whether one is guilty or no,” says Pargev Ohanyan. “However, today the investigation body can call any suspected a “criminal”, forgetting about the presumption of innocence. Many other problems that arise between parties during the investigation process make us believe that its existence in the judicial system is like something that spoils the beauty and everything in it. I strongly believe that preliminary investigation should be eliminated as an investigation phase,” says Pargev Ohanyan.
Syuzanna KHALATYAN