Lawyer Hayk Alumyan informed the European Court for Human Rights has adopted the annual report on the execution of verdicts 2017, based on the monitoring of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
Under the report, the countries having the highest number of new cases are Russia (370), Turkey (138), Romania (110), Ukraine (109) and Greece (103).
The new cases from Armenia are 15 (10 in 2016). The countries with most observed new cases are Russia (19), Turkey (14), Ukraine (13), Romania (11) and Lithuania (10).
The cases (unraveling new issues referring to infrastructure and/or system) being observed in Armenia amounted to 2 in 2017.
The countries having the highest rates with closed cases in 2017 are Italy (2.001), Hungary (296), Russia (254), Romania (144) and Poland (133).
The closed cases on Armenia in 2017 accounted for 4, a lot less than in 2016 (16).
“Aravot” asked Ara Ghazaryan, expert on the “European Convention on Human Rights” (ECHR) if the fact that the number of closed cases in Armenia is less in 2017 as compared to 2016 confirms the concerns that the procedure of observing the appeals from Armenia to the ECHR has started to be prolonged. The expert replied: “We should first and foremost examine the case from the contextual perspective. It depends on the conditions. It is more important to see the content – what cases are regarded to be closed. By examining the content, one can see some tendencies. The number can be 5 for one year and 2 for the other. It merely depends on the procedure, inasmuch as the procedure is implemented with a different speed.”
As assured by lawyer Hayk Alumyan, taking into consideration the number of the population, from the perspective of percentage, the new cases lodged by Armenia are more in number than by other countries.
Asked if it means that the lawyer’s community works more professionally or the cases of social interest are more which the citizens were not able to solve through inter-state judicial bodies, Mr. Alumyan replied: “It is due to lawyers’ honest work. Naturally, a situation should be in place when the person sees s/he cannot defend his/her rights through inter-state judicial bodies. Subsequently, the case reaches the ECHR. Plus, a quality legal service should be in place for the case to be possible to be taken to the European Court already. It is a healthy phenomenon.”
We reminded that the lawyer had expressed an opinion implying that a period would come when the ECHR would represent a row of verdicts against Armenia and asked if that period has already started, Mr. Alumyan replied: “That tendency is gradually noticed. A lot of cases are now communicated and in the last phase. And rather painful verdicts are expected against us in the near future for a lot of cases. A row of verdicts will be issued especially on the initial detention. What I am informed of gives me sufficient grounds for thinking that verdicts against Armenia under the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th Articles of the Convention are going to be issued. There is a long-before agreed standard by our courts, that the initial detention, that is – when the person is still being accused of the crime, is applied, taking into consideration that s/he is merely accused. It is sufficient for our courts to detain the person. Meanwhile, the European Court has stated in a lot of cases that it cannot serve as a sufficient ground to detain the person. Those verdicts are going to be gradually issued against Armenia and our country is going to have a lot of losses.”
Tetev HARUTYUNYAN
