Lawyer Yervand Varosyan made a statement saying that 138 lawyers are striking, by not participating in court sessions on September 13 (the case session of 14 of the “Sasna Tsrer” is also scheduled on that day).
By this action lawyers express their displeasure, as they define, over illegal activities, in particular, to be illegally searched in court before the sessions.
“The law does not permit a search of a lawyer. There is no set order that a lawyer should take something out of the bag. Moreover, it is not clear what items are particularly forbidden. That is, when the court bailiff decides what the lawyer can take out of the bag, it is becoming an arbitrary search. Metal item can be a lawyer’s working tool, I’m not going to open my bag and show my working tools. It turns out that the court considers the lawyer to be a suspect, and in fact, the lawyer is a suspect for the bailiff. Accordingly, the bailiff assumes that the lawyer may have an object with him which can be used to harm someone. Well, if the lawyer is a suspect, then let them make a relevant decision, and to investigate him in accordance with the law”, in an interview with Aravot.am, Nina Karapetyants, one of the advocates of “Sasna Tsrer” case, stressed the mentioned issue from the reasons for the strike.
She added, “Unfortunately, we did not see the support we expected from the Chamber of Advocates. I’m not sure what the reason is”.
Lusine Sahakyan, one of the advocates of the “Sasna Tsrer” case, told us: “Examination is external. Any action that leads to the opening of the bag is a search. Via special devices, it could be reported whether there are forbidden objects in the bag or not. There are courts that possess such devices, but they don’t use those, instead, they are searching. So, we find it unacceptable. We will fight till the end until the problem is resolved”.
It should be reminded that the Judicial Department of the Republic of Armenia has issued a statement on the special devices.
Luiza SUKIASYAN
