Today the European Court of Human Rights published a judgment on the case of Zalyan and Others v. Armenia (application nos. 36894/04 and 3521/07). The case concerned the complaint by three former servicemen that they had been subjected to torture while performing their military service, being suspected of having murdered two other servicemen. One of the applicants also complained that he had been unlawfully deprived of his liberty.
In today’s Chamber judgment in the case, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:
no violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights as regards the applicants’ alleged torture;
a violation of Article 3 of the Convention on account of the lack of an effective investigation into their complaints of having been subjected to torture; and
Read also
a violation of Article 5 §§ 1, 2 and 3 (right to liberty and security) in respect of one of the applicants, Mr Zalyan.
The Court considered that there was insufficient evidence to corroborate the applicants’ allegations of having been tortured, largely as a result of the authorities’ failure to comply with the applicable procedural rules, under which the applicants would have had to be placed in a detention facility where they would have undergone a compulsory medical examination. At the same time, the Court found that the applicants had raised an arguable claim of having been subjected to ill-treatment.
Contrary to their obligation to carry out an effective investigation, the prosecution authorities had failed to make any serious attempts to investigate those allegations.
As regards Mr Zalyan’s detention, the Court considered, in particular, that prior to 24 April 2004, he had been deprived of his liberty for the purposes of the criminal investigation while the alleged disciplinary penalty imposed on him had been only a formal pretext. As for the period from 24 August to 4 November 2004, there had been no court decision authorising his detention.
Please, see full text of the press release following the link below.
Background:
According to the 2015 statistics of the European Court of Human Rights, in 2015 the Court delivered eight judgments on cases brought against Armenia. The highest number of violations found in Armenian cases concerned the right to a fair trial (five violations). This is the Article that Mr. Kirakosyan is relying on. Throughout the history of the European Court, from 1959 to 2015, a total of 60 judgments were delivered on cases brought against Armenia, in the vast majority of them (55) violations were found.
Tatiana Baeva