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Member of the Doughty Street Chambers of England, the Queen’s barrister Edward Fitzgerald has issued a statement in which he has stated that it is necessary to put an end to the large-scale discriminatory acts against second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan.

The statement particularly states the following:

“I am certain that the ongoing gross violations against the second President of Armenia under the case of alleged overthrow of constitutional order will be included in the practice of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and will be described in academic books sooner or later. The violations have been thoroughly presented in the complaints of the ECHR and to international organizations and have been discussed on different platforms several times. It is safe to say that the violations are unprecedented in terms of their volume and content, starting from the legal certainty and regressive force of Article 300.1 and ending with violations of the right to a fair trial.

Even in its annual report released in April 2020, the Council of Europe Commissioner stated that the proceedings for the case of the events of March 1, 2008 must be implemented in strict observance of the principle of rule of law, independence of the judiciary, transparency and the right to a fair trial. Moreover, he called on political figures and people expressing opinions to avoid targeting, labeling and defaming people during their public speeches. The politicians of Armenia need to pay heed to these calls.

However, today, we all need to realize what impact the outbreak of the epidemic has and may have. This is why I call on the court to apply alternatives to imprisonment immediately. The decision of Judge Danibekyan must also be in line with the principles of treatment of prisoners released by the European Committee on March 20, 2020 (in the context of the coronavirus (COVID-19)).

I have been informed that the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia has groundlessly rejected the undertaking of measures to change the pre-trial measure for the second President of Armenia which, in essence, is a manifestation of gross discrimination, taking into consideration the fact that the pre-trial measure for several prisoners was recently changed due to the epidemic. Thus, in this case, it is safe to state that several rights enshrined by the European Convention on Human Rights have been violated, including Article 14 of the Convention and the regulations in Protocol No 12.

As a matter of fact, the ECHR has enhanced the principle of prohibition of discrimination in one of its benchmark cases to which Armenia was a side. In the case of Virabyan v. Armenia, under the light of Article 14 of the Convention, the ECHR found that “political pluralism, which implied a peaceful co-existence of a diversity of political opinions and movements, was of particular importance for the survival of a democratic society based on the rule of law. Acts of violence committed by agents of the State intended to suppress, eliminate or discourage political dissent or to punish those who hold or voice a dissenting political opinion posed a special threat to the ideals and values of such society”. The Court also stated that “State authorities have the additional duty to take all reasonable steps to unmask any racist motive and to establish whether or not discriminatory hatred or prejudice may have played a role in the events”.

Thus, during the trial scheduled for May 8, the judge must immediately examine and satisfy the issue of change of pre-trial measure, guaranteeing full and effective exercise of the Convention rights of the second President of Armenia, especially during the state of emergency.”

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