YEREVAN. – It’s surprising that from the decision comprising 23 pages, [solely] one paragraph is cited without looking at it in interdependence with the other paragraphs. Constitution specialist Aram Vardevanyan, who is also a member of the legal defense team of Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan, on Monday told this to Armenian News-NEWS.am, referring to the Prosecutor General’s Office reaction to the Constitutional Court’s (CC) recent ruling—and based on the petition by Kocharyan.
“Second, it isn’t observed—it seems by chance, or by will—that the CC has clearly recorded that functional immunity doesn’t imply in itself the matter of whether or not to stem from status—which the Prosecutor’s Office has noted in the statement, but the circumstance of stemming from the status, or activities; that is, the activities are that additional circumstance that has been recorded,” he added. “The Prosecutor’s Office has also not noticed that the CC (...) has recorded that the legislative gap is to the degree that there is no legal opportunity to overcome it. And the gap relates to functional immunity, and the CC’s conclusion is that it runs counter to Article 27 [of the Constitution].”
In his words, the attorney general’s office has not expressed any position as to why the CC’s aforesaid ruling analyzes the European Court of Human Rights’ precedent on the quality of law in the cases when the courts have granted the motion for detention, and to the quality of law in the light of detention.
“And most importantly, of course, which hasn’t been analyzed and mentioned in any way [in the Prosecutor General’s Office reaction], it’s the CC decision’s (...) assertion that (...) the peculiarities of immunity were impossible to uncover in such a case,” Vardevanyan added, in particular.
As reported earlier, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia has found that there are no grounds for terminating the criminal prosecution against Robert Kocharyan and releasing him under the aforesaid CC decision.
The CC had deemed unconstitutional Article 35 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and which refers to cases that rule out criminal prosecution in the country.
Robert Kocharyan is charged with overthrowing the constitutional order in Armenia in connection with the tragic events that occurred in capital city Yerevan in March 2008, and taking a particularly large bribe. He has been arrested three times.
On March 1 and 2, 2008 the then authorities of Armenia used force against the opposition members who were rallying in downtown Yerevan, and against the results of the presidential election on February 19, 2008. Eight demonstrators as well as two servicemen of the internal troops were killed in the clashes.
