1 / 20

On January 13, initiated by the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs Taguhi Tovmasyan, a working discussion on the depreciation of the institution of detention as a measure of restraint, violations of the procedure of the “manual” signing of judicial cases and their elimination was held.

The NA deputies, former and current judges, human rights defenders, lawyers, as well as representatives of judicial and legal spheres took part in the working discussion.

Taguhi Tovmasyan has noted that detention is perceived as a sanction, not a measure of restraint, which, according to her, cannot be acceptable both from the legal viewpoint, and by international conventions.

The NA deputy from the Armenia Faction Aram Vardevanyan informed that last year, in October-November, he tried to find out statistical data related to detention as a measure of restraint, the picture of which extremely disturbed. “It is about the picture of satisfying more than 80% of the detention motions submitted by the courts,” he underlined.

As the international expert, lawyer Ara Ghazaryan has said, the number of detentions decreases. However, according to him, we should focus not on the number, but on the content.

The Deputy Head of the Department of Organization, Supervision and Legal Assistance at the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Armenia Karen Amiryan has also underlined that in recent years, the downward tendency is clear. He has also informed that the Prosecutor General’s Office has developed a legislative package on clarifying the process of applying detention as a measure of restraint still in 2018. However, the package was not processed.

The participants of the discussion referred to the “manual” signing of judicial cases, stating that it caused dissatisfaction among some judges.

It has been clarified that since July of the last year, within the framework of the preliminary investigation of one of criminal cases, the keys for the access and management of the server of the computer program of distribution of cases between judges have been confiscated by the criminal prosecution body. It was noted that the RA Human Rights Defender applied to the Constitutional Court on the issue.

Summarizing the working discussion, the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs Taguhi Tovmasyan expressed readiness to study the raised issues in more depth and, if necessary, to introduce legislative amendments.