New ECHR rulings against Armenia; Human rights activist, newspaper to get compensations

The European Court of Human Rights has made two judgments against the Republic of Armenia at once. Both complaints were related to the bloody events of March 1, 2008. The first verdict was made in the case of Barseghyan v. Armenia․ The applicant is Levon Barseghyan, Chairman of the Board of the Asparez Press Club, NGO. The complaint was submitted to the Strasbourg court by Edmon Marukyan, who was a lawyer during those years. In a conversation with Factor.am, Levon Barseghyan, recalling the events of March 2, 2008, says that the day after the bloody events in Yerevan, he went to the Theater Square in Gyumri, where a rally was taking place. The police, however, did not allow him to approach the rally and arrested him. “The deputy head of the police department attacked me, started shouting, pushed me to the street. I demanded an explanation from him, then he started shouting that it was a state of emergency, and I countered, only in Yerevan, and that was illegal. Eventually, I was taken to the Police, and then the court fined me 50,000 drams. After exhausting the domestic court instances, we had to apply to the European Court of Human Rights,” Barseghyan said.

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.

The second verdict was made in the case of Dareskizb LLC v. Armenia. The plaintiff is the Haykakan Zhamanak daily, which at that time was headed by Nikol Pashinyan, who is currently the prime minister. His representative in court was lawyer Tigran Atanesyan, who is one of Pashinyan’s opponents these days. The applicant challenged in court the decision to impose a ban on the publication of the newspaper during the days of the State of Emergency of March 2, 2008. According to the ECHR ruling, in those days the authorities violated Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights – freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial – Article 6, part 1  because the court hearing their case was “not a tribunal established by law”. According to the court decision, the Armenian government should compensate the Dareskizb, LLC, 9000 euros.