“By this Moment, we do not have even one judge who is restored to his position, which shows how crippled the system is,” Iravaban.net spoke to Human Rights Activist Siranush Sahakyan about the judges whose powers were terminated in 2023.

According to Sahakyan, the powers of many judges were unlawfully terminated in 2023, and these cases are now in the ECHR. “The positive news is that the court has applied Articles 40 and 41 of its Rules of Procedure, which means that it has identified a systemic problem in these cases and prioritized the investigation of the cases. on the other hand, the rule of urgent communication was applied, which means that the RA Government will be informed about these cases in the near future, and should prepare the presentation of its objections.

The Human Rights Activist added that they spoke about many cases of violations of rights in these cases, related to the lack of independence of the members of SJC. According to their assessment, the current Council does not meet the standards of independence and is completely subject to political influences, not ensuring a fair trial. “We have had cases where this vital right for defense was restricted and this is a very vicious practice, especially when dealing with judges. In other words, the circle that ensures the normal functioning of the judicial power and guarantees the independence of the judge, initiates a legal process with the involvement of the judge, where the judge is deprived of the right to defend himself as well as a number of other rights.

Sahakyan added that in their opinion, it would be possible to record the chain of these violations and carry out work to eliminate the systemic problem in Armenia through the ECHR. “It is a priority for us that the judges who were illegally dismissed from the judicial system return and be restored to their former positions.”

She mentioned that by this moment we do not have even one judge who has been restored to his position, which shows how crippled the system is. She also said that they would be consistent so that all processes had their logical end.

To our question: how does the Human Rights Activist assess the ECHR’s recognition of the complaints of the former 3 judges of the Constitutional Court and the former President as inadmissible? Sahakyan answered that this decision of the court is inadmissible in the court itself. “This was an unexpected decision from the legal point of view, but as a result of summarizing the political factors, it was also predictable. We know that the Constitutional Court has an important role and what happened around it was largely related to the developments in post-revolutionary Armenia. Let’s not forget that such an important statements as the tripartite statement of 9 November were signed by bypassing the Constitutional Court.”

To remind, Karen Andreasyan, the President of the Supreme Judicial Council, noted that within the framework of the judicial vetting, large-scale dismissals and appointments of judges took place. “…After the revolution, the powers of 30 judges were terminated on the basis of disciplinary action, 8 of which were terminated within the last year.”

Mariam Antonyan