Today, on 10 March, the Supreme Judicial Council announced the decision to bring to disciplinary liability Judge Vahagn Melikyan of the Court of First Instance of Yerevan. The Council decided to satisfy the motion of the Ministry of Justice, to reprimand the judge.

According to the justification of the motion of the Ministry of Justice, the judge violated the requirements set forth in Article 135, Parts 1 and 2 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code. Article 135 defines the grounds for applying a preventive measures.

“1. Preventive measure shall be executed by the court, prosecutor, investigator and inquiry body only when the material obtained for the criminal case provides sufficient reason to assume that the suspect or the accused may:

1) hide from the body which carries out the criminal proceeding;

2) inhibit the pre-trial process of investigation or court proceeding in any way, particularly by means of illegal influence of the persons involved in the proceeding, concealment and falsification of the materials relevant to the case, negligence of the subpoena without any reasonable explanation;

3) commit an action forbidden by Criminal law;

4) avoid the responsibility and the imposed punishment;

5) oppose the execution of the verdict.

Arrest and the alternative preventive measure shall be executed in respect to the accused only for his commitment of a crime for which he may be imprisoned for more than a year; or there are sufficient grounds to suppose that the suspect or the accused can commit actions mentioned in the first part of the present Article,” the Code defines.

The judge noted that the violations were committed as a result of negligence.