Monday, February 7, 2022
Armenian Judge Arrested After Freeing Oppositionist
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia-Judge Boris Bakhshiyan,undated
An Armenian judge was arrested on Monday in what he sees as government
retaliation for his decision late last month to grant bail to an opposition
figure detained in December.
Despite serious concerns voiced by other judges as well as many lawyers, a court
in Yerevan allowed the National Security Service (NSS) to take Boris Bakhshiyan
into custody on charges stemming from another decision made by him recently.
The NSS and state prosecutors requested a state judicial watchdog’s permission
to indict Bakhshiyan just days after he agreed to release Ashot Minasian, a
prominent war veteran and opposition activist, on January 26.
Minasian was arrested on December 1 one year after being charged with plotting
to kill Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and overthrow the Armenian government and
illegally possessing weapons. The National Security Service dropped the coup
charges later in December.
Bakhshiyan’ lawyers said last week that Minasian’s release is the reason why the
authorities decided to prosecute the 36-year-old judge working at the court of
first instance of southeastern Syunik province. The prosecutors deny this.
“I just find no words to describe what happened,” one of the lawyers, Yerem
Sargsian, told reporters after the Yerevan court allowed the pre-trial arrest of
his client.
Bakhshiyan is accused of illegally arresting a defendant in an ongoing trial
presided over by him after the latter failed to attend a court hearing in
December. The prosecutors say that the defendant, Nver Mkrtchian, was absent for
legitimate reasons and should have remained free.
Armenia - Kajaran Mayor Manvel Paramazian.
Incidentally, Mkrtchian had earlier given incriminating testimony against Manvel
Paramazian, the opposition-linked mayor of the Syunik town of Kajaran arrested
last summer on corruption charges rejected by him as politically motivated.
Bakhshiyan freed Paramazian on bail in November. But the latter was arrested
again on Monday after Armenia’s Court of Appeals overturned the decision made by
the embattled judge.
Bakhshiyan’s lawyers point out that the prosecutors did not appeal against his
subsequent decision to arrest Mkrtchian. They also say that judges cannot be
prosecuted for their decisions made in good faith.
The leadership of Armenia’s Union of Judges echoed these arguments in a
statement issued on February 2. The statement expressed serious concern over the
criminal proceedings launched against Bakhshiyan, saying that they put judicial
independence in the country at serious risk.
Bakhshiyan also received the backing of eight other judges of the Syunik court.
In a joint statement released on February 4, they described their colleague as a
true professional and a man of integrity.
Armenia -- A court building in Yerevan, June 9, 2020.
Independent legal experts also questioned the credibility of the accusations
leveled against the judge.
“The work of a judge can only be [legally] evaluated by a superior judicial
body,” said Hayk Martirosian of the Armenian branch of the anti-corruption group
Transparency International.
Ara Ghazarian, a prominent lawyer and expert on international law, insisted, for
his part, that Bakhshiyan did not break the law when he controversially ordered
the defendant’s arrest in December.
“In the history of Armenia, there has never been before a case where a judge is
prosecuted for ordering an arrest during an ongoing trial,” Ghazarian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
In recent months, Armenian opposition groups, lawyers and some judges have
accused Pashinian’s government of seeking to increase government influence on
Armenian courts under the guise of judicial reforms. The authorities deny this,
insisting that the reforms are aimed at increasing judicial independence.
U.S. Watchdog Again Blasts ‘Degradation Of Democratic Norms’ In Armenia
• Anush Mkrtchian
ARMENIA -- Police detain demonstrators during a rally demanding the resignation
of the country's prime minister over his handling of the conflict with
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in Yerevan, December 8, 2020.
U.S. democracy watchdog Freedom House has criticized the Armenian authorities
for continuing to prosecute citizens accused of insulting state officials.
In a weekend statement, it again said that the practice testifies to a “clear
degradation of democratic norms” in Armenia.
Amendments to the Armenian Criminal Code passed by the country’s
government-controlled parliament last summer made “grave insults” directed at
individuals because of their “public activities” crimes punishable by heavy
fines and a prison sentence of up to three months. Those individuals may include
government and law-enforcement officials, politicians and other public figures.
The Armenian police have launched more than 260 criminal investigations stemming
from the amendments that took effect in September amid strong criticism from
local and international human rights groups. Many of those cases reportedly
target people accused of offending Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
One of them became last week the first person convicted under the new
legislation. A court fined him 500,000 drams (just over $1,000) for swearing at
Pashinian in a phone call with a police officer.
“We are concerned with the first conviction of an Armenian citizen under a new
law criminalizing ‘serious insults’ of government officials,” read the Freedom
House statement. “This shows a clear degradation of democratic norms and creates
a chilling effect for free expression in Armenia.”
The U.S. watchdog already called for a repeal of the Criminal Code articles
shortly after the authorities began enforcing them in September. Armenian
officials dismissed those calls.
Vladimir Vartanian, the pro-government chairman of the parliament committee on
legal affairs, again defended the amendments on Monday.
“We have to understand that freedom of speech has limits,” said Vartanian. “We
have to understand that there are some expressions that absolutely do not fit
into the legitimate boundaries of free speech. Insults definitely don’t.”
The controversial amendments have also been condemned by the Armenian
opposition. Opposition leaders say that Pashinian himself has relied heavily on
slander and “hate speech” before and after coming to power in 2018.
All forms of slander and defamation had been decriminalized in Armenia in 2010
during then President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule.
More Armenian POWs Freed
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - A French military plane with eight Armenian prisoners of war freed by
Azerbaijan on board is seen at Yerevan airport, February 7, 2022.
Azerbaijan set free eight more Armenian prisoners of war on Monday three days
after a virtual Armenian-Azerbaijani summit organized by French President
Emmanuel Macron and European Council President Charles Michel.
The soldiers were flown to from Baku to Yerevan by a French military plane. The
Armenian Foreign Ministry said they were repatriated “through the mediation of
the French government and the EU.”
Both Michel and Macron hailed the release, implying that it resulted from their
video conference on Friday with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The four leaders also discussed efforts to
reduce tensions along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and open transport links
between the two South Caucasus states
“Thank you to our diplomats as well as to our soldiers involved in this
operation,” tweeted Macron. “We are moving forward!”
Four of the freed Armenian soldiers were taken prisoner in Nagorno-Karabakh in
December 2020 shortly after a Russian-brokered ceasefire stopped a six-week
Armenian-Azerbaijani war for the territory. The others were apparently captured
during heavy fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in November 2021.
According to the Armenian authorities, nearly four dozen Armenian soldiers and
civilians remain in Azerbaijani captivity. Many of them were given lengthy
prison sentences last year after short trials condemned by Armenia.
Yerevan regularly demands the unconditional release of the remaining captives,
saying that they are held in breach of the 2020 truce accord. Baku claims that
the agreement does not cover them.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
