Wednesday,
Armenian Judges Defy State Watchdog
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - A meeting of the General Assembly of judges, Yerevan, .
Armenian judges on Wednesday criticized the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) for
sacking their colleagues and accused it of trying to effectively rig the
election of a new member of the state body overseeing the country’s courts.
The several hundred judges gathered in Yerevan to fill a vacant seat in the SJC
reserved for one of them. Only judges formally notified by the judicial watchdog
can run for it. The SJC staff sent out such notifications only to provincial
judges, excluding their colleagues working in Yerevan courts from the contest.
Several prominent judges condemned the decision as illegal. One of them, Davit
Balayan, said he has challenged it in court.
“In my view, the judicial department predetermined the circle of judges eligible
for nomination,” Balayan told reporters. “I believe this cannot be done.”
The SJC said that provincial judges are not among its current nine members and
that it believes the remaining seat should be given to one of them. Most
participants of Armenia’s General Assembly of Judges were unconvinced by that
explanation, postponing the election of the SJC member.
The judicial watchdog has wide-ranging powers, including the right to nominate,
sanction and even fire judges. It is headed by Karen Andreasian, a former
justice minister widely regarded as a political ally of Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian. Andreasian and four other SJC members were installed by the Armenian
parliament controlled by Pashinian’s party. The four others were elected by the
General Assembly.
Armenia - Karen Andreasian, head of the Supreme Judicial Council, chairs an SJC
hearing in Yerevan, June 29, 2023.
Over the past year, the SJC has significantly increased the number of
disciplinary proceedings against judges accused by the Ministry of Justice of
various violations. Armenian opposition leaders and some legal experts claim
that this is part of government attempts to further curb judicial independence
in Armenia under the guise of Western-backed “judicial reforms.” Pashinian’s
government denies these claims.
The SJC controversially dismissed four judges as recently as on July 3. One of
them, Davit Harutiunian, was ousted after saying that the SJC arbitrarily fires
his colleagues at the behest of a single person. The Ministry of Justice accused
him of breaching the Judicial Code and discrediting the Armenian judiciary.
“I believe that Mr. Harutiunian was unfairly ousted from the judicial system,”
Balayan said in this regard.
“I am very concerned about so many disciplinary proceedings … I am concerned
that four judges can be terminated in one day,” said another district court
judge, Arman Hovannisian.
Vazgen Rshtuni, a judge of Armenia’s Court of Appeals, echoed those concerns and
said he and his colleagues should be able to openly discuss them.
“The Supreme Judicial Council is not a holy site and the people working there
are not saints either,” Rshtuni told journalists.
But another senior judge, Gevorg Gyozalian, said his colleagues should stay away
from the press. “The only platform for addressing our problems is the General
Assembly,” said Gyozalian, who worked as Pashinian’s private lawyer before being
appointed to the Court of Cassation last year.
No Progress Made In Armenian-Azeri Border Delimitation Talks
ARMENIA -- Azerbaijani (L) and Armenian border posts by the Sotk gold mine, June
18, 2021.
The Armenian government essentially confirmed on Wednesday that Armenian and
Azerbaijani officials did not make major progress last week during another round
of negotiations on delimiting the border between their countries.
The joint session of Armenian and Azerbaijani government commissions on border
demarcation and delimitation took place at a relatively peaceful section of the
heavily militarized frontier on July 12. It was co-chaired by Deputy Prime
Minister Mher Grigorian and his Azerbaijani counterpart Shahin Mustfayev.
No concrete agreements were announced following the meeting, with the Armenian
Foreign Ministry saying only that the two sides “addressed a number of
organizational and procedural issues.”
News.am quoted Grigorian’s office as saying that they did not agree on which
maps should be used for the delimitation purposes. “No decision was made
regarding any map,” it said.
Speaking after his June 1 meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held
in Moldova, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian suggested that Baku is open to
accepting an Armenian proposal to use 1975 Soviet maps. The Azerbaijani Foreign
Ministry denied that, however. It said that Azerbaijan has demarcated its
borders with other neighboring states “on the basis of analyses and examination
of legally binding documents, rather than any specially chosen map.”
The issue was also on the agenda of another Aliyev-Pashinian meeting hosted by
the European Union’s top official, Charles Michel, in Brussels on July 15.
Michel said the two leaders “agreed to intensify and accelerate the work of the
commissions.”
The practical modalities of the border delimitation are one of the stumbling
blocks in ongoing talks on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.
EU Backs Azeri Supply Line For Karabakh
• Astghik Bedevian
• Susan Badalian
Armenia - EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in
Georgia Toivo Klaar visits Yerevan, June 6, 2023.
The European Union has again welcomed Azerbaijan’s offer to send food and other
humanitarian supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh via an alternative route bypassing the
Lachin corridor blocked by Baku for the last seven months.
"The Lachine corridor should be opened,” Toivo Klaar, the EU’s special envoy to
the South Caucasus, told Alphanews.am late on Tuesday. “At the same time, I
think that every offer should also be used, not as an alternative to Lachine but
as a complement to it.”
Azerbaijani officials have made the offer while dismissing international calls
to lift the blockade and denying a humanitarian crisis in Karabakh despite
severe shortages of food, medicine, fuel and other essential items there. They
say that the region can be supplied with basic necessities from Azerbaijan
proper and the town of Aghdam in particular.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev apparently insisted on this idea during his
trilateral meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and EU head
Charles Michel held in Brussels on July 15. Michel said after the talks that as
well as urging Aliyev to reopen the Lachin corridor he “noted Azerbaijan’s
willingness to equally provide humanitarian supplies via Aghdam.”
“I see both options as important,” he said, prompting strong criticism from
Karabakh’s leadership that regards the Aghdam option as a ploy designed to
facilitate the restoration of Azerbaijani control over Karabakh.
“Our position is that there is an international obligation [by Azerbaijan]
regarding the unhindered functioning of the Lachin corridor and it must be
fulfilled unconditionally,” Artur Harutiunian, a senior Karabakh lawmaker, told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Wednesday.
Harutiunian pointed to a Russian-brokered 2020 agreement that committed Baku to
ensuring unfettered commercial traffic through the sole road connecting Karabakh
to Armenia.
“For some reason, European officials keep talking about humanitarian aid,” he
complained. “They seem to think that the people of Artsakh should only live off
humanitarian supplies and are looking for some alternative arrangements for
that.”
Nagorno-Karabakh - Residents of Stepanakert line up outside a local food store,
January 20, 2023.
Several non-governmental organizations based in Stepanakert also denounced
Michel’s remarks. “Assistance to people facing a humanitarian catastrophe cannot
come at the expense of their dignity from a country that can offer them nothing
but hatred, suffering and pain,” they said in a joint statement.
Many ordinary Karabakh Armenians appear to back this stance despite the fact
that one month after the tightening of the Azerbaijani blockade there is
virtually nothing they can now buy in local food stores apart from limited
quantities of bread.
“No way, only the lifeline road to Armenia,” a resident of the village of
Khramort said when asked about the possibility of accepting food supplies from
Azerbaijan.
Khramort has about 220 residents. It now receives only 35 loaves of bread each
day.
“They [the Azerbaijanis] only want a Karabakh without Armenians,” said Janik
Petrosian, a schoolteacher who fled another village that was seized by
Azerbaijani forces during the 2020 war.
On Tuesday, a group of local activists placed concrete barriers on a Karabakh
road leading to Aghdam. They also put a banner reading “The road to death.”
It remains unclear how Pashinian reacted to the Azerbaijani proposal during his
weekend talks with Aliyev. The Armenian government’s press office has not
commented on that so far.
The Armenian premier sparked uproar in Stepanakert and Yerevan in May when he
effectively recognized Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh. He regularly calls
for an internationally mediated dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert on “the
rights and security” of Karabakh’s population. His critics counter that no
security guarantees can convince the Karabakh Armenians to live under
Azerbaijani rule.
Armenian Army Chief Visits U.S.
U.S. - Gen. Charles Brown, chief of U.S. Air Force Staff, meets Lt.-Gen. Eduard
Asrian, the Armenian army chief, Washington, .
Armenia’s top army general has met with high-ranking U.S. military officials
during a visit to Washington.
The officials included Admiral Christopher Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, and General Charles Brown, the chief of the U.S. Air Force
Staff.
The Defense Ministry in Yerevan said on Wednesday that Lieutenant-General Eduard
Asrian, the chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff, discussed with them
U.S.-Armenian “defense partnership” and “the conduct of joint activities”
stemming from it.
The two sides explored “opportunities for broader cooperation in the Air Force
sector,” a ministry statement said, adding that “regional security” was also on
the agenda. It gave no other details. The Pentagon issued not statements on
Asrian’s trip.
The secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, visited Washington
earlier this month for talks with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan
and Laura Cooper, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia,
Ukraine and Eurasia.
In an interview with the Armenian Service of the Voice of America published last
week, Grigorian said the United States and Armenia are now discussing ways of
“opening new doors” in bilateral military cooperation.
“We have made great progress. The results will be visible in the long term,” he
said without elaborating.
Washington has given no indications that it could provide Armenia with weapons
or other military equipment.
Armenia - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Armenian Defense Minister Suren
Papikian (cemter) meet in Yerevan, September 18, 2022.
In September 2022, then U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and three other
pro-Armenian U.S. lawmakers fuelled speculation about such military aid when
they met with Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikian during a visit to
Yerevan. Pelosi said the meeting was meant to “convey America’s support for
Armenia's security” in the face of Azerbaijan’s “illegal and deadly attacks on
the Armenian territory”
Grigorian insisted that Armenia’s close military ties with Russia are not
hampering the expansion of its defense cooperation with the U.S.
Armenia’s relations with Russia and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) have deteriorated significantly over the past year due to
what Yerevan sees as a lack of support from its ex-Soviet allies in the conflict
with Azerbaijan. In January, the Armenian government cancelled a CSTO military
exercise which it was due to host this year.
In April, Moscow demanded explanations from Yerevan after the U.S. Department of
Defense initially listed Armenia among 26 nations that will participate in an
upcoming U.S.-led military exercise in Europe. The demand came after the
Pentagon promptly removed the South Caucasus country from the list, citing a
technical error. The Russian Foreign Ministry charged that the Defender 23
drills are part of U.S. efforts to drive a wedge between Russia and other
ex-Soviet states.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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