Recently, the court has issued an unprecedented decision in the legal practice of Armenia on “Levon Barseghyan vs. the police”, laying an obligation to the police to pay half a million Armenian drams as a compensation of moral damage caused to the activist for illegal deprivation of freedom. Levon Barseghyan’s right was infringed 5 years ago when he was protesting against the appearance of Russian flags at the parade dedicated to the Independence Day of Armenia.
In an interview with Aravot.am, Levon Barseghyan said, “The matter was about two different amounts: one was about judicial and material expenses (to go back and forth to Yerevan for a year and a half, gasoline, transport, transport cost is not counted, we calculate only the gasoline as I was doing the driver’s job, and of course, about the monetary compensation for the lawyer. Artak Zaynalyan’s efforts are enormous in this case, and thanks to his persistence and consistency, we won this case. To remind that earlier, we have won the original lawsuit at the Administrative Court by which the Administrative Court recognized the infringement of my three fundamental constitutional rights by the Kentron Police: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of mobility and the violation of the free rights to rallies, which was not disputed by the police, nor appealed to the Court of Appeal and the lawsuit was not appealed. Only after this, we filed a claim for court expenses and compensation for moral damage. Pertaining to the size of the moral damage, we are guided by the size of the minimum amount of compensation for moral damage required by similar cases of the European Court of Human Rights, approximately 1 million Armenian drams. We could claim for 2, 3, 4 million but we have claimed for one million. For unexpected reasons, the court was extending reading the verdict for a long time, it scheduled a day for reading the verdict, then it was called back and a new day was scheduled and so on … Then for some mysterious reason, it decided that the police must compensate 300 thousand Armenian drams for the judicial expenses instead of approximately 500 thousand drams. And the compensation for moral damages must be 200 thousand AMD instead of one million drams, which does not satisfy us. This is an additional moral blow to me, it is not enough that they detained me for 3 hours in police station illegally so that I will not be able to express my protest, afterwards, I had to go back and forth to the courts for two years, spend my time and resources to achieve the verdict recognizing the violation of my rights. Now, it is deciding at its own that it has not caused one million moral damages to me but just 200 thousand drams. If they make us angry a little more, we will submit a claim for 10 million drams. Although this is a victory and an example for all suffered citizens who can use our example if wanted we are going to appeal the verdict to the Court of Cassation, demanding the total compensation of damages while pertaining to the material damage, because of delay, we are going to demand a percent from the court as they owe to the person and I have spent money very specifically and it should be compensated as appropriate rather than by the whim of the court. And then to the Court of Appeal, and then, if necessary, to the European Court of Human Rights. We did not have this one and a half million for two years and we will not have it for another ten years but we will win the lawsuit.”
To our question of whether from now on, the police will be careful about people’s illegal deprivation of freedom during the rallies, Mr. Barseghyan replied that the police are not deciding on doing things at their own but those who make decisions are the supervisors. “The Commander decides, Deputy Chief of Police, Monsieur Osipyan is a decision-maker, there is an actor there, a cha-cha-cha who makes the decisions, such detentions are not by the will of an ordinary policeman. And even now when this amount is compensated, the police if necessary will implement the commands coming from Baghramyan 26, he will say, well, damn it, you are paying from the state budget rather than from your pocket, truly, it was compensated from the state budget. Certainly, there was a dilemma that, hey man, the money that we demand for compensation is going to come from the state budget, it’s a pity, but I’m looking around and saying, you are fed up about the state budget, what if you compensate the moral damage caused to me also from the state budget, if not for the case, this issued would not be raised. They must weigh committing such crimes or delinquency while doing their commitments and powers but I encourage and urge the sufferers, they are hundreds of people, over thousands who have become victims of illegal police harassment, detained to the police, kept in custody, released and bore no administrative responsibility.”
Nune AREVSHATYAN,
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Photo from “Radio Liberty”
