EUROPEAN COURT FAULTS YEREVAN IN LANDMARK RULING
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Jan 11 2007

In a first-ever ruling relating to Armenia, the European Court of
Human Rights on Thursday declared illegal the arrest of an Armenian
opposition activist who helped to organize an anti-government
demonstration more than four years ago.

The landmark judgment will raise fresh questions about the legality
of hundreds of similar arrests that have accompanied the Armenian
government’s controversial crackdowns on the opposition in recent
years.

The plaintiff, Armen Mkrtchian, was detained by the police along
with several other members of the radical opposition Hanrapetutyun
(Republic) party after actively participating in an unsanctioned
rally in Yerevan on May 14, 2002. He was released after being fined
a largely symbolic 500 drams ($1.5) under Armenia’s Soviet-era
Administrative Code.

Mkrtchian took his case to the Strasbourg-based court in November
2002, arguing that the Armenian authorities can not sanction anyone
for attending street protests in the absence of a law regulating the
constitutionally guaranteed freedom of assembly.

Armenia enacted such a law only in 2004. Until then, the Armenian
government invoked Soviet-era regulations that required government
permission for the holding of rallies and other public gatherings.

Mkrtchian and his lawyer insist that those can not have a legal force
in modern-day Armenia.

A panel of seven European Court judges, among them Armenian Alvina
Gyulumian, unanimously accepted the 35-year-old oppositionist’s
arguments, ruling that his brief detention violated a key article of
the European Convention on Human Rights which takes precedence over
all Armenian laws and government directives. Yerevan signed up to
the convention when it joined the Council of Europe in January 2001.

The Strasbourg court cited a lack of "domestic provision which clearly
stated whether the former USSR laws remained or did not remain in force
on the territory of Armenia." Its did not impose any penalties on the
Armenian state, saying that the "finding of a violation constituted
in itself sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage
sustained by the applicant."

Mkrtchian, who did not seek any material compensation, said he is fully
satisfied with the ruling. "The main purpose of my application was
to show our judges and rulers that they must honor their obligations
to the Council of Europe," he told RFE/RL. "They will now be more
vigilant. I have kind of cleared the way for similar legal challenges
against illegalities committed in our country."

The Armenian Justice Ministry, which fought the government’s corner in
Strasbourg, declined comment. A spokeswoman said Justice Minister David
Harutiunian is too "busy" to immediately react to the development.

The Armenian authorities used the Administrative Code to arrest
hundreds of opposition supporters and activists during the presidential
elections of February-March 2003 and the April-May 2004 opposition
campaign of street protests against President Robert Kocharian. Many
of them were sentenced to between five and fifteen days’ imprisonment
in closed overnight trials condemned by local and Western human
rights groups.

The Council of Europe has repeatedly criticized the practice of
so-called "administrative detentions," leading the authorities in
Yerevan to abolish it last year.