Advocates' cup of patience is already filled. More than 100 advocates held protest in front of the Court of Cassation on July 7 demanding to stop "injustice" guided by "approvals" of the court of upper instance.

"All the mistakes that we have in Armenia are due to the Chairman of the Court of Cassation. He is to blame for it. If he does not prevent the violations and they grow like a snowball, he is to blame for it", said Ruben Sahakyan, Chairman of the Chamber of Advocates.   

He emphasized that the goal of the protest is not protecting judge Samvel Mnatsakanyan but calling all advocates not to tolerate arbitrary and ungrounded decisions of judges any more. Sahakyan believes that advocates too are guilty for the current situation for seeing judges' mistakes and keeping silent. Hence, he calls everyone to present the materials to the Chamber of Advocates.  

"We have to present all those decisions to the Council of Justice. And like they behaved in the case of Samvel Mnatsakanyan, we too have to demand that similar disciplinary actions are applied to other judges right up to members of the Chamber of the Court of Cassation who make dozens of ungrounded decisions - starting with Arman Mkrtumyan, Chairmen and members of Chambers", the Chairman of the Chamber of Advocates announced adding that there should be no discrimination.

Advocate Hayk Alumyan too emphasizes that their action should not be personified, and that they raise a deep systemic problem.  

"In our judicial system the judge can easily make a mistake to the detriment of the accused and then he has no problem, but if he makes just one mistake in favor of the accused, that will be fatal for his career.

That is why our judges, proceeding from the bitter experience of their colleagues, prefer to make mistakes in detriment of the accused, since such mistakes are easily forgiven, everyone turns a blind eye to it. That's why almost always they decide to detain people, they issue a verdict of guilty...", Alumyan says reminding a gross judicial mistake of a judge: he justified the torture against the accused on the basis that "violence was committed to reveal the truth". No disciplinary action was taken against that judge because, in Alumyan's opinion, he made a mistake in detriment of the accused.

Advocate Lusine Sahakyan believes that the frequent application of detention as a means of restraint in our judicial practice is the result of Soviet mentality. However, she thinks that application of detention has become inadmissibly widespread.

"When anticorruption fight was announced, everyone thought to detain more, to bring more charges so that no one would think that they had interest in the outcome of the case. This is absolute disgrace: they are fighting against corruption violating rights of people", the advocate says mentioning that the fight against corruption resulted in worse consequences.

Lusine Sahakyan believes that judge Mnatsakanyan was guided by the law, did not get an "approval" and did not obey the will of the Court of Cassation, for which he was punished.     

"Our justice is in agony, it's on the verge of an abyss," advocate Ruben Rshtuny says. For the current situation he accuses not only courts which "were and are adjuncts of prosecution office" but also the prosecution office itself for which no concept of "presumption of innocence" exists.  

Mary Alexanyan

Source - www.hra.am