On 13 November 2014 the European Court of Human Rights passed several verdicts on the cases “Baghdasaryan and Zarikyants against Armenia”, “Gharibyan and others against Armenia” and “Ghasabyan and others against Armenia”.
Prior to this the General Prosecutor`s Office informed that on the cases “Baghdasaryan and Zarikyants against Armenia” and “Gharibyan and others against Armenia” the applicants demanded 300.000 EUR from the RA Government, the ECHR sufficed the claim of the applicants, setting respectively 44.000 EUR and 52.000 EUR respectively. On the case “Ghasabyan and others against Armenia” applicants demanded around 370.000 EUR from the RA Government, the ECHR sufficed the lawsuit setting compensation of 64.000 EUR.
According to the Rector of the Academy of Justice Ruben Melikyan he dealt with these cases holding the position of the Deputy Minister of Justice in 2012. “I am certainly satisfied that the ECHR finally made verdicts on these 3 cases. This is not only significant for the applicants who finally got certainty on what is ECHR`s perception on fair compensation for similar violations, my understanding is that this certainty might have been missing”, said our interlocutor.
He also marked the significance of these verdicts in the following perspective: “We close some doors with these 3 cases and as a result of the process in 2004-2005 it seems we don`t have unsolved cases at the ECHR”.
Referring to the verdicts of concrete cases Mr. Melikyan stated: “The verdicts on these exact cases, as could be assumed from the ECHR`s inclination towards the system of legal precedents, were solved on the same principles of fair compensation as the cases of Minasyan-Semirjyan and other verdicts before. The problem is that sometimes the difference is quite essential between the expectations of the parties and the reality. In these cases ECHR was requested to rule for a compensation of 300 USD per each square meter for the apartment of 117 sqm, and an additional compensation of large non-material damage, I guess 70 thousand EUR was demanded in one of the cases, nevertheless, the final image was different”.
So Ruben Melikyan advises lawyers applying to the ECHR to have these cases as fundaments while filing lawsuits. “The legal community should also think on the reasons why this non-compliance of reasonable expectations of the parties and the ECHR verdicts take place. The rulings of the court are the application of the already-developed principles, we already have acts which can help understand the criteria on which the ECHR bases its actions. The lack of this understanding is for me a problem of our legal community, when people have false or non-equivalent expectations, they become very unsatisfied and they do not get any certainty. This is also a problem of our professional community. Those who take these cases, should be able to ensure equivalence between the expectations of the applications and the reality of the future”, concluded Mr. Melikyan.
