RULED ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL

2010/03/30/sd
06:20 pm | March 30, 2010

Politics

The Constitutional Court recognized the article of the Penal Code that
permitted quashing the criminal case on the grounds of insufficient
evidence as anti-constitutional and invalid.

The Constitutional Court took the decision today by examining the
appeals filed by Armenian National Congress representative Karapet
Rubinyan and "Hanrapetutyun" (Republic) party leader Aram Sargsyan
through a written procedure.

After March 1, 2008, a criminal case had been brought up against
Karapet Rubinyan and Aram Sargsyan under the charges of usurping state
power and organizing mass disturbances, but both were off persecution
in December 2008 on the grounds of insufficient evidence through the
application of Part 2, Article 35 of the Penal Code.

Artak Zeynalyan, representative of Aram Sargsyan and Karapet Rubinyan,
told "A1+" that they are dealing with a hypothesis: If there is
no evidence, there is no guilt and the case must be quashed on the
grounds of innocence.

"We think there is no need for Article 35. It goes against Articles
18 and 21 of the Constitution," said Artak Zeynalyan and informed
that they were going to appeal to the Cassation Court with the demand
to reconsider the appeals by which the grounds for quashing the case
against those persons was still in effect.