HOW TO EASE THE BURDEN OF THE EUROPEAN COURT?

Panorama.am
15:30 27/11/2007

The participants of a conference on cooperation among human rights
ombudsman, CoE human rights supreme commissioner and the European
Court on Human Rights were discussing one topic today – how to solve
as many problems as possible within the national institutes and ease
the burden of the European Court.

Armenian ombudsman Armen Harutunyan recently participated in a
conference of ombudsmen in Strasbourg and the topic emerged from
that conference.

The participants said the topic is urgent for the whole region in
general. According to the ombudsman almost of post-soviet countries
face the same situation. "But this must not be calming for us,"
he said.

"Cases that you would never think about in France and Norway take
place in Armenia," he said also saying the defeat of a state in the
European Court is damage for us because the country has to pay fines
from the state budget. If today that money is only $3000 there is a
tendency to raise it up to $30,000, he said.

Armen Harutunyan says in case an atmosphere of trust towards state
institutions is not developed, there can be no word about real
democracy. According to him, the letter and the spirit of our laws
are contradicting each other.

The suggestions and ideas of the conference will be developed and
submitted to the CoE Human Rights Supreme Commissioner.