A well-known lawyer Hayk Aloumyan reflects on opinions given in the interview of Gevorg Kostanyan, Assistant to RA President Serzh Sargsyan, representative of Armenia at the European Court, and particularly, expresses his discontent on the issue regarding disciplinary responsibility put upon judges.

-Mr. Aloumyan, do you agree with the opinion of Gevorg Kostanyan, that according to decisions of the European Court some judges on concrete cases were subjected to disciplinary responsibility, particularly on the case of Misha Haroutyunian, which you represented at the European Court on Human Rights?

-There are some points in Mr. Kostanian's interview, which explicitly do not correspond to the reality, for example, he says that when the European Court indicated legal violations in the case of Misha Haroutyunian, the judges of First Instance Court and Court of Appeal were subjected to disciplinary responsibility. However, it is not true. The decision adopted by the RA courts on this case was absurd, and all European lawyers were laughing at it. Nevertheless, no judge of the Court of Appeal was called to responsibility. There was only a discussion on calling to responsibility three judges of the Court of Appeal, which ended with discussion on punishing one judge, and still no judge of the Court of Appeal  was called to responsibility.  Only the judge of the First instance court was reprimanded, and his salary was cut by 25% for the period of one year. 

-Are you convinced that the decisions of the European Court against RA take place because of our courts and judges?

-If we put aside the cases, on which the court decisions are not implemented, our judges are to be blamed for all other decisions of the European Court against RA. They should understand that they will be punished for illegal actions.  If a judge has no concern about it, he will continue violation of human rights, and Armenia will continue to be subjected to penalties. However, Mr. Kostanyan is against calling judges to responsibility to support their independence.  This approach is beneficial only for judges, and in broader sense, it deprives the role of the decisions of the European Court.  

-Why? All decisions of the European Court against the states aim to restore violated human rights.

 -Yes, but the long-term goal of these decisions are to improve the judicial system of the state.  The logic is that the state against which the decision is adopted make efforts to avoid similar mistakes in the future. However, if the judges are sure in their impunity, if they are not concerned that their decisions will be acknowledged as contradicting the European Convention, then the decisions of the European Court will not promote justice in Armenia. Therefore, if, based on the decisions of the European Court, the state makes efforts to restore the human rights only in respect to individual cases but does nothing to avoid similar violations in the future, then it diminishes the role of decisions of the European Court.  This means that the amount of inconsistent decisions instead of decreasing will increase. 

The inconsistency in the decision on Misha Haroutyunian was absurd.  It is written in the decision: "Although violence was applied to Misha Haroutyunyan and those who witnessed against him, the purpose of the violence was to discover the truth."

- From time to time all states are recognized as violating human rights by the European Court.

 - Right, but there is difference in the quality of violation. I would like to understand what else should the judge write in his decision to be subjected to put aside his authority. The other side of the issue is also interesting: only the judge of the Court of First Instance was punished, out of three judges of the Court of Appeal only one was discussed to be punished, and there was no discussion about punishing judges of the Court of Cassation. When the European Court was hearing the case, our government said, yes, there was a mistake in the decision of the Court of First Instance, but the mistake was not repeated by the Court of Appeal and Court of Cassation. Nevertheless, the European Court decided that the Courts of Appeal and Cassation, leaving the decision of the Court of First Instance unchanged, repeated the mistake, otherwise, Armenia would not be recognized as a state which violated the European Convention. Thus, we should conclude that the Courts of Appeal and Cassation should be considered as co-authors of the decision, and share the responsibility with the judge of the first instance court. Moreover, I believe that their fault is bigger, and as I said no judge of the Court of Cassation was called to responsibility, this question was even not discussed. And now Mr. Kostanyan builds theoretical basis for this connivance. The ideology of this approach is that the judge should not feel vulnerable, he should be independent.  However, this approach is justified only partially.  It is true that a judge should not be dependent on any body or individual in making justice, but he should depend on the law. In our reality, it is vice versa.  Now Mr. Kostanyan, in fact, says to the guilty judges, which brought to decisions of the European Court against Armenia: don't be afraid of the decisions of the European Court, he encourages them, and naturally, they continue violations.

You see, we won the case of Misha Haroutyunian In the European Court: it decided that Armenia violated rights of Haroutyunian. But even after the decision of the European Court, here in Armenia we met aggressive resistance of the Criminal Palace of the Court of Cassation.

They do everything that Armenian courts do not review the case of Haroutyunian and he does not turn approved.

I already proved in the Constitutional Court that the actions of the Court of Cassation violate the Constitution.  Today the staff of the Criminal Palace of the Court of Cassation is almost the same when they adopted the famous decision.  They were not punished for this decision, and now they do everything to prevent justice to win. Mr. Kostanyan wants to convince that a judge should be independent, and we agree. However, our judges are dependent on prosecutors' office, executive powers, even on a community leader. They are not dependent only on the laws and taxpayers, whose money they live on. 

Interview by Rouzan Avoyan