Today a round table discussion took place in Yerevan during which The Report on the war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the 44-day war of 2020 committed by Azerbaijan was presented.
The “Center for Strategic Litigations“ NGO with assistance of the Open Society Foundations – Armenia realized a project aimed to collect the available war crime evidence and, inter alia, letters with supported evidence were sent to the governments of the EU countries, Great Britain, the USA and Canada to launch criminal investigations under National and Universal Jurisdiction and to request application of personal economic sanctions against high level officials and military personnel of Azerbaijan.
The report was elaborated taking into consideration the statements made in open sources, by famous international organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Amnesty International etc., as well as the articles of major media outlets, such as BBC, Al Jazeera, Reuters, The Independent, France 24 and so on.
During the round table speeches were made by the President of the Center for Strategic Litigations Edmon Marukyan, Human Righst Defender of Armenia Kristinne Grigoryan, Representative of the Republic of Armenia before the European Court of Human Rights Yeghishe Kirakosyan, Expert of International law, Board Member of the Center for Strategic Litigations Taron Simonyan. The Report was presented by Ruzanna Avagimyan, Attorney at Law and a Board Member at the Center for Strategic Litigations.

44-DAY-WAR-REPORT

As of 1 February 2022 the time-limit for submitting an application to the European Court of Human Rights is four months following the final domestic judicial decision in the case, which is usually a judgment delivered by the highest court in the country concerned. The time-limit was previously six months.

This new time-limit is not retroactive: it does not apply to applications in which the final domestic decision was taken prior to 1 February 2022. In other words, it will only apply to applications in which the final domestic decision is given from 1 February 2022 onwards.

The four-month time-limit for applying to the Court after the final domestic decision is one of the admissibility criteria laid down in Article 35 of the Convention. If even one of these criteria is not met the application will be declared inadmissible, which is why it is essential to comply with all the requirements when submitting an application to the Court.

The change to the time-limit for applying to the Court arises out of Protocol No. 15 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which has been signed and ratified by the 47 member States of the Council of Europe. This text amending the Convention entered into force on 1 August 2021, but provided for a transition period before the change of time-limit became effective.

Both decisions relate to the claims filed by the citizens of Armenia.

According to Khojoyan and Others v. Azerbaijan, the plaintiffs are Hasmik Khojyan, Yeghine Vardazaryan and Haykaz Khojyan (deceased). They are citizens of Armenia and were born in 1964, 1967 and 1959, respectively.

The court case is related to the allegations of the complainants of the detention and bad treatment of their father at the beginning of 2014 on the territory of Azerbaijan. The plaintiffs’ father left his home, located in Armenia and close to the border with Azerbaijan, in the morning hours of January 28, 2014. Two days later, reports spread about his detention in Azerbaijan. He was handed over to Armenia on March 4, 2014. The man passed away 10 weeks later.

The Diary of the European Court writes that, according to the plaintiffs, paragraphs 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of torture), 5 (right to liberty and security), 13 (right to an effective legal remedy) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination ) European convention were violated.

According to the materials of the Petrosyan v. Azerbaijan case, the plaintiff Artush Petrosyan is an Armenian citizen, born in 1957 and residing in Chinari (Armenia).

The plaintiff’s son, born in 1981, crossed the border with Azerbaijan on August 7, 2014. He was detained by Azerbaijani servicemen and died in the territory of Azerbaijan.

The plaintiff disputes the violation of paragraphs 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of torture), 5 (right to liberty and security), 8 (right to respect for private and family life), 13 (right to an effective legal remedy) and 14 ( prohibition of discrimination) of the European convention.

Today, thank to efforts of Armenian lawyers, within frameworks and principles of universal jurisdiction, a 226-page substantiated application was submitted to the Prosecutor General of the Federal Republic of Germany to prosecute high-ranking Azerbaijani officials for war crimes committed during the 44-day war in 2020.

Dear freinds,
We are happy to inform you that today European Court of Human Rights has made a judgment of a case case of Barseghyan v. Armenia. The complaint was submitted by the founder of SCL NGO Edmon Marukyan in 2009 and was related to the events of March 1, 2008. The applicant is Levon Barseghyan, Chairman of the Board of the Asparez Press Club, NGO.

The European Court, in particular, came to the conclusion that the right to freedom of peaceful assembly of the Applicant was unlawfully restricted, when in on March 2, 2008, the police did not allow him to hold a peaceful rally in Gyumri, when the state of emergency was declared only in the capital city Yerevan. Moreover, the European Court came to the conclusion that the measures applied to Barseghyanthe by the police, as well as by the RA Administrative Court were disproportionate. No evidence has been presented that L. Barseghyan intended to hold an unauthorized rally (demonstration) in Gyumri.

Thirteen years later, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled today that Barseghyan’s right to freedom of assembly, as guaranteed by Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, had been violated. The applicant also pointed out that the actions of the police had not been substantiated, as there had been no violence or uncontrollable situation in Gyumri. Taking all this into account, the ECHR obliged Armenia to pay Barseghyan 1500 euros.

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