Cases of prisoners sentenced to life are a touchstone to assess the country’s justice system, says advocate Robert Revazyan. “By such cases, we can evaluate the extent of the development of country’s justice system, and the extent to which the human rights and individual rights are protected. This shows that we are very poor in this area; there are real facts that show the lack of fair trial and that the convict is telling the truth, but we face the wall,” he added.
According to the lawyer, the current justice system does not allow to initiate even a new proceeding based on the newly discovered circumstances. “I do not say that the case is reopened, They Simply avoid it because it will bring back a lot of questions, If it is not him, then where are the real culprits, the official’s responsibility arises as well. Finally, after 10-15 years, the question of a new trial will come forward, and where to find the persons and so on. This is a chain and we think it would be better not to enter that swamp and better stay away,” emphasized the advocate.
Drawing a historical overview, the advocate recalled that until 2003 the Criminal Code did not provide a life sentence, the death penalty was extreme measure. With the enactment of the New Criminal Code the President pardoned 42 people sentenced to death and by the same decree the life imprisonment was defined as punishment. “When looking at this from the point of view that life imprisonment was better than death, yes, there was a relief. But there was another factor as well: first, if the President granted a pardon, he could no longer inflict punishment, as it is the exclusive prerogative of the court. The other is that the former Criminal Code stated that a person sentenced to death is granted amnesty then a certain term of imprisonment may be imposed, also for more than 15 years, but it could not more than 20 years. In this case a more severe sentence was set for these people. In the criminal law we have a principle that the sever law has no retroactive force. And this was in violation as well,” said Mr. Revazyan.
Notably, at present, there are around 104 life-sentenced prisoners in Armenia.
Iravaban.net
