1. Penitentiary System Reforms

    a. Investigators Call For Longer Indictment Deadlines

[09.07.2004]

Civil Society Institute NGO organized the round table -discussion on the
problems of preliminery detention in Armenia. 

Senior prosecutors and police investigators said on Friday that they need much
more time to decide whether or not to bring charges against criminal suspects
than is given to them by Armenian law.

Under Armenia’s current Criminal Code law-enforcement authorities have up to 72
hours to formally accuse a detainee or set them free. If they decide to press
ahead with the case they need a court decision to keep the suspect in custody.


Speaking at a seminar on criminal justice, a senior official from the Office of
Prosecutor-General, Hakob Gharakhanian, complained that three days is too short
a period for making objective judgments about a person’s involvement in a crime.
“An investigator does not have to stay awake for several nights,” he said.

“One should not just come out and say, ‘We are integrating into Europe, the
Europeans are always right and we must work like them’,” Gharakhanian added,
defending the Soviet-era practice of much longer preliminary detentions.

The prosecutor said investigators should have at least ten days for leveling
accusations and be able to keep suspects behind the bars in the meantime. A
senior investigator from Armenia’s Police Service, Tatul Petrosian, picked up
the point, arguing that by sanctioning pre-trial arrest under the current
legislation the courts predetermine guilty verdicts.

“When an investigator brings charges after just three days of work they later
serve as a basis for the court verdict,” Petrosian said.

Armenian judges rarely refuse prosecutors’ demands for pre-trial detentions.
Official figures for last year show that more than 96 percent of 5,116 arrest
petitions filed by prosecutors were rubber-stamped by the courts. Research
conducted recently by the Civil Society Institute (CSI), a Yerevan-based
non-governmental organization, has found that the number of such petitions has
grown in recent years despite a drop in the number of crimes solved by the
law-enforcement agencies.

The CSI survey quoted an unnamed judge as saying that the Armenian courts would
release suspects from police custody pending trial in at least one third of
cases if they were truly independent. Local human rights groups say the police
and prosecutors are keen to keep suspects in jail because that makes it much
easier for them to extract confessions through torture and psychological
pressure.

By Karine Kalantarian


http://new.csi.am/eng/index1.php?goto=guest&id=55

    b. “Preliminary Detention Places in Armenia”
Exhibition

[10.07.2004]

Civil Society Institute presented an exhibition entitled “Preliminary detention
places in Armenia” which took place on July 10th, in the park near the Komitas
Conservatory.

The photos were taken during the monitoring project of the living conditions of
detainees and working environment of the staff in the criminal execution
institutions of Armenia. The monitoring project was conducted by Civil Society
Institute from August 2003 to March 2004.


http://new.csi.am/eng/index1.php?goto=news&id=1783

2. Freedom of Information

“Investigative Journalists" Addressed the Court Of Appeals

[08.07.2004]

On July 6 “Investigative Journalists” public organization and its chairman Edik
Baghdasarian challenged with the RA Court of Appeals the decision of the court
of primary jurisdiction of Center and Nork-Marash communities of Yerevan on the
suit versus the Yerevan municipality. As it has been reported, on June 21, 2004
the court of primary jurisdiction declined the suit of “Investigative
Journalists”. The plaintiff demanded that the municipality provide the
resolutions of the city administration of 1997-2003 on the construction in
public green zone around the National Theater of Opera and Ballet, necessary for
a journalistic investigation. The judge motivates her ruling saying the
organization did not attempt to receive the necessary information from other
state institutions before addressing the municipality and the inquiry was not
specific enough (see YPC Weekly Newsletter,
June 18-24, 2004).

“Investigative Journalists” demand that the ruling of the primary jurisdiction
court be abolished and the actions of the municipality be qualified as a refusal
in information. Along with this, the organization addressed a new inquiry to the
municipality of Yerevan, listing all the enterprises operating on the territory
around the Theater of Opera and Ballet and of interest to “Investigative
Journalists”.


http://new.csi.am/eng/index1.php?goto=news&id=1785

3. Human Rights Trainings and Conferances

Consultation of Human Rights Defenders

10.07.2004]

The Human Rights Education Center (HREC) and the International Service for Human
Rights (ISHR) organizing a

Consultation of Human Rights Defenders

Caucasus Region


Date: 27-28 September 2004

Location: Borjomi, Georgia


http://new.csi.am/eng/index1.php?goto=news&id=1786