The Court of Cassation of Armenia has accepted the appeal of the attorneys of second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan for proceedings which concerns the decision that the Court rendered on November 15, 2018 and now has to review it.

In August of last year, Judge Alexander Azaryan of the Criminal Court of Appeal released Robert Kocharyan on the ground of immunity. The Prosecutor General’s Office appealed this decision, and on November 15, 2018, the Court of Cassation overturned the decision and forwarded the case to the Criminal Court of Appeal for a new examination.

One of the articles of the Criminal Procedure Code prescribes that “as a result of review of judicial acts not resolving the case on the merits, such as the issue of custody, the Court of Cassation either rejects the appeal or renders a new judicial act”. Accepting this as a basis, Kocharyan’s attorneys found that the Court of Cassation couldn’t have overturned the judicial act on the preventive measure for Kocharyan and forward it to the same court.

In May 2019, the Constitutional Court of Armenia, examining the issue of constitutionality of the particular article of the Criminal Procedure Code, rendered a decision favoring Robert Kocharyan, and this decision of the Constitutional Court is viewed as a new circumstances based on which the attorneys have filed a new appeal with the Court of Cassation.