Interview with the member of
the Chamber of Advocates Lusine Sahakyan

Recently the European Court of Human Rights satisfied the
complaint of the citizen Kamo Piruzyan versus Republic of Armenia. What were
the violations held in the case?

This is one of the unique cases
where a set of decisions was made concerning to all issues of detention in our
judicial practice. The European court held that there is a violation of several
provisions of the parts 1,2,3 and 4 of the Article 5 of the European Convention
on Human Rights (right to liberty and security of person).

In 2006 Piruzyan has been
charged with murder attempt and banditry. From the beginning he insisted that
has no connection with the crimes, presented the facts proving he was at home
when the crimes were committed. His wife had confirmed this fact and assured
that her husband was at home at the
time of crimes’ committal.

There were many violations in
this case: wife with her newborn child was taken to the Police, violence has
been applied towards her, and she was threatened and was told that they will
throw her child from the window and she has to write that her husband was not
home. The case was investigated in such situation. One year and two months
later Piruzyan was acquitted. However he has been under detention during this period of time.

We, the lawyers, were trying to
explain the courts that there were no ground for the person’s detention because
there was no reasonable suspicion or evidence that he has a connection with the
offence. Besides, there was no any fact proving that Piruzyan would abscond and
obstruct the investigation or would commit a new offence if released. Under
such conditions the court imposed a preliminary detention as a measure of
restraint and later extended the terms of detention.

Lawyers have protested against
an excessive use of preliminary detention by the courts on many occasions.
Where the issue is rooted: legislation or practice?

There are issues connected with
both legislation and practice. Particularly, the old Article 138 of the
Criminal Procedure Code defined that when the criminal case is forwarded to the
court, the term of detention is terminated. We raised a question then that this
article violates the Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights and
this norm should not be valid.

The Article 143 stipulates that
if the person is accused for committing grave and particularly grave offence,
application of a bail as preventive measure is inadmissible. We insist that it is
a violation of the Convention as well. RA Court of Cassation has issued precedent
decisions and thus confirmed that these two articles contradicts the Convention
and should not be applied and it should be stressed that in general the courts
do not apply these articles.

It was common another arguable
practice of using preliminary detention as a measure of restraint by the courts
without obtaining any evidence provided by the materials of the criminal case.
The Cassation has passed a decision concerning this practice on inadmissibility
of imposing preliminary detention as a measure of restraint without any ground.
However, the Court of Cassation was not consistent and number of our appeals
was returned with the same argumentation that in our appeals we did not
substantiate that the judicial act that to be issued may be essential for the
equal application of the law or that judicial fault may lead to severe
consequences.

In the case of Kamo Piruzyan
and in other cases the European Court of Human Rights has clearly defined that
the existing practice in Armenia is inadmissible, people are detained on mass
scale. However this practice exists so far and the Republic of Armenia and
Armenian tax payers suffer. Compensation to Kamo Piruzyan imposed by the
European Court will be paid by us, tax payers, because the courts have violated
his rights and the Court of Cassation disregarded this. This situation lasts
for years and nothing is changed.  

What violations are prevailing in the applications submitted
to the European Court versus Armenia?

As I have mentioned above,
there are many cases of violation of the Article 5 of the European Convention
of Human Rights (Right to liberty and personal security), Article 3 (Right not
to be subjected to torture, inhuman and degrading treatment). There are a
prevailing number of violations of the Article 6 (Right to fair trial) and
Article 1 of the First Protocol to the Convention (peaceful enjoyment of his
possession) in relation of residents of sales areas.

I would like to mention that
Armenia will face serious problems in connection with the Articles 10 and
11(Freedom of expression and freedom to peaceful assembly) particularly based
on the complaints concerning March 1 cases.

Recently the European Court of Human Rights issued number of
judgments against Armenia, what is the reason and what is your forecast?

In the past there very not many
applications lodged with the European Court. As far as the process takes too
long, the judgments are just issued and a range of judgments against Armenia is
expected in near future.

Whether the financial claims presented in the applications are
fully satisfied?

No, they are not fully
satisfied. We see that the Court imposes bigger compensations in the beginning
in order to change the situation in country. Then the size of compensation is
reduced if the Court sees that there is an improvement.

As a lawyer, do you think that the size of compensation was
adequate in case of Kamo Piruzyan?

No, as I think that 8000 EUROS is too small sum for one year
and two months of illegal deprivation of liberty.