Should we have died for you to open a criminal case?

The Heritage Party tries to achieve through the court that the Special Investigation Agency opens a separate criminal case based on their report on what happened on March 3 in front of the cabinet building.

 “As an elected MP of the NA I express my discontent with the obvious encroachments on the court of the RA”, stated the Heritage MP Anahit Bakhshyan in the court of the first instance of Kentron and Nork-Marash districts of the city of Yerevan yesterday. The complaint of the Heritage party against leaving without consequences the report on what happened on March 3 in front of the cabinet building by the Special Investigation Agency was being examined presided by the judge Khandanyan. “On that day, a high degree disrespectful attitude to say the least against the representatives of the legislative organ showed by the so called law-enforcement organs aroused my deepest discontent and especially not opening a criminal case concerning our complaint”, said Mrs. Bakhshyan. “I want to ask the court; if, God forbid, on that day harm had been done to one of us (for example my blood pressure had increased so high, that I had died), what would you have done? Would you have rejected opening a criminal case again? Do you expect something like that to happen (though it took place on March 1, which many left behind)? What should have happened in order that they had paid appropriate attention and had opened a criminal case, a preliminary investigation had been conducted, and legal proceedings had been conducted?” As Zaruhi Postanjyan stated, the preliminary investigation organ should have made one of the decisions stipulated by Article 181 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code, particularly, on opening a criminal case. Meanwhile the SIA detective on specifically important cases K. Torosyan said that their complaint was attached to the opened case on the same occurrence with the features described in Paragraph 1 of Article 316 of the CC (Criminal Code), i.e. the criminal case on “conducting non-dangerous violence on the officers of the PA (Patrolling Agency) regiment of the police of the RA who are the representatives of the government”. The Heritage Party representatives underlined many times that this case had nothing to do with their report that was related to the violation of their right of free meetings and other rights, Zaruhi Postanjyan also said that CPC did not stipulate that the report on a crime could be attached to any case. This decision of the detective’s was appealed against also to the Attorney General of the RA, however that appeal was rejected too for being groundless. The rejection was signed by the Senior Attorney of the Attorney General’s Office Harutyun Harutyunyan who appeared in the court as the defendant. “When a criminal case is opened, the second, third or countless cases cannot be opened on the same event”, said Mr. Harutyunyan presenting their objection to the complaint and stating that the Heritage MPs presented their report on March 4 5 days after the case was opened. If their report had been the first to receive with the conditions they had mentioned and with the existence of certain conditions, a criminal case would have been opened. However, in the case opened on Article 316 the object of compulsory examination is the fact whether the violence used against the representative of the government was related to performing the latter’s duties, whether it was a mean of preventing the government representative from performing his obligations stipulated by the law. I.e. the clarification of the mentioned condition completely makes it possible to conduct an investigation on the factors mentioned in the Heritage MPs’ report.” According to him, “the lawfulness and legitimacy of the government representative’s actions” is an object of compulsory clarification and is very important for the preliminary investigation organ.

Anahit Bakhshyan, however, said that though she is an eyewitness and a participant of those events, she had not been invited for interrogation by the SIA thus far, “Therefore, I greatly doubt that in the framework of that opened criminal case the interests and rights of me , my colleagues and our citizens will be protected to the degree and in the manner that would have been if the report had been accepted. In fact, two different groups made a report on the crime; one is accepted, and the other not, although they arouse completely different issues.” The court will make public its decision on this complaint on June 3.