In the light of new political developments in Armenia, the judiciary has obtained an unprecedented opportunity to reinstate its independence and administer justice in the politically sensitive cases involving opposition representatives and civic activists. On this occasion, on May 29, 2018, the Open Society Foundations – Armenia organized a public discussion, gathering attorneys, lawyers—involved in publicly known cases of politically motivated charges, civil society representatives and human rights defenders. The discussion invited speakers and participants to share their views on the necessary preconditions to provide a fair trial in the cases of political prisoners.
One of the speakers, Davit Khachaturyan PhD, legal expert, presented the issue of criminal prosecutions on political grounds, explaining the legal standards that define the status of a political prisoner. He reminded that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) reaffirmed this definition and its criteria on October 2012 (Resolution 1900) and further explained the difference between political reasons and judicial reasons when issuing a prison sentence. As an illustration, Khachaturyan referred to a number of court cases, where the arrest warrant was applied in a discriminative manner. He also mentioned the case of Virabyan vs Armenia, where the European Court of Human Rights noted a violation of the Article 3 (Prohibition of torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights, which, nevertheless, did not serve as a ground to reopen the case in the domestic courts. Besides the violation of the fundamental human rights during detention, Khachaturyan additionally pointed out the accelerated course of the process set by the previous government, when the arrest warrant was issued based on ungrounded suspicions of offence and the person was taken from the inspector’s office directly to the court. He underscored that this manner of depriving a person of his/her freedom indicated discrimination based on political reasons and explained his point by referring to the criteria of PACE Resolution 1900.
Talking about the fundamental issues of political prisoners in Armenia, Avetik Ishkhanyan, the Chairman of the Armenian Helsinki Committee, suggested a comprehensive and deeper understanding of the Articles 6 or 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to liberty and security and the right to a fair trial). He noted several violations of other articles of the convention closely connected with these two articles, highlighting as an example the discriminatory attitude towards the detainees from socially vulnerable backgrounds who were subject to more unfair treatment and torture than those from well-standing families. Ishkhanyan noted that traditionally the majority of the cases of political persecutions were connected with post-election developments. Some of the cases, he recalled, were fabricated to the level that reminded the cases of Stalin’s terror. Ishkhanyan put a greater emphasis on the cases of the prisoners of conscience—persons arrested for their views and words, and their large number, especially during the post-election period. Regarding the solutions to the justice issues in Armenia and securing the right to a fair trial, he mentioned that one should not overestimate the role of the government. Even if the government issued an amnesty and solved the problem of overcrowding in penitentiary institutions, it could not guarantee that political prisoners would not be persecuted after being freed from detention. On this occasion, Ishkhanyan reminded the case of Andreas Ghukasyan (released on May 7, 2018), when that the judge asked if he would continue his political activities when freed from the prison, and after receiving a positive answer, the judge denied the motion for repealing his detention decision. Ishkhanyan expressed hope that one day there would not be any political prisoners in Armenia, but for that, he believed, that the civil society had to continue its efforts towards the freedom of the current prisoners and undertake activities to change the system and most importantly, the mentality.
The discussion also referred to the existence of other forms of persecution, especially, individuals persecuted for their speech, political opinion, conscience, religious denomination, faith or creed and the absence of any form of mechanisms in Armenia that would identify, criminalize and punish this kind of discrimination and interference. Haykuhi Harutyunyan, the president of Protection of rights without borders NGO, drew the participants’ attention to the historical fact that the PACE elaborated the definition of a political prisoner in 2001 to assess the cases of political prisoners in Armenia and Azerbaijan in the context of the accession of the two states to the Council of Europe. But besides the cases identified by the PACE criteria as political prisoners, she mentioned that the Amnesty International has designated the cases of imprisonment or restriction of freedom on the grounds of persons’ political or religious beliefs, ethnicity, gender, race, sexual orientation or economic status as prisoners of conscience classifying it within the definition of a political prisoner. Referring to the escalation of post-election detention cases, Harutyunyan explained that both types of imprisonment (political prisoners and prisoners of conscience) were recurrent in Armenia, and if in cases of the former the authorities detained active opposition figures to maintain their power and position, in the cases of the latter they directed their activities to silence those individuals who spoke openly in social and public arenas.
The discussion later concentrated on the transitional justice and implementing the measures to redress human rights abuses. Arthur Sakunts, the Chairman of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (HCA) Vanadzor Office, pointed out that in 1991, at a point of transition from Soviet systemic violence and repressions, Armenia did not enact transitional justice—a fact, which had serious consequences in terms of perpetuating the abuses, the lack of accountability and injustice. He reminded that as a member of the European Council Armenia had to undertake the measures of repairing the fractured justice system of the country through the European Court of Human Rights.
The Q&A session that followed the critical issues raised by the discussants, concentrated primarily on the role of the civil society in judicial reforms. Several potential methods of participation listed by the participants, were the composing of a Magnitsky list with the names of the judges, who took part in the unfair decisions, demanding from the international commissions and observers to review their statements that there were no political prisoners in Armenia. All participants agreed univocally that the independence of judicial system should be secured, whereas, several among them expressed caution about the Supreme Council of Justice, which could continue the systemic traditions of previous government making premeditated decisions regarding disciplinary sanctions and other issues. The final remarks of the discussion focused again on the role of the civil society in voicing about political prisoners and more importantly, illuminating the wider public and the international community why a given person is a political prisoner, what measures, persecution and detention details qualify this person as such, reveal and explain the act committed by the person and the way the judicial system acted towards the person.