Armenia has not ratified the Statute of the International Criminal Court since 2004, as it is a country at war, and such states are usually very careful with the Court and its Statute, international law expert and attorney Ara Ghazaryan told Armenian News - NEWS.am.
The Government of Armenia has addressed to the Constitutional Court to approve the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
"The Statute of this Court provides for criminal proceedings against those who have committed war crimes, and there was a great fear in Armenia, it still exists today, that Azerbaijan will immediately use the pretext and start bringing trumped up cases against our military," Ghazaryan noted.
He said that there are chambers in the court which conduct preliminary investigation and trial. The court can initiate criminal proceedings against a specific person, regardless of citizenship, if he or she has allegedly committed international crimes under the statute.
"This court doesn't work very efficiently because there are only three dozen completed cases, and it has a history of about 20 years, which is very little. The proceedings last a very long time, about 10 years. There are also cases brought against the president of the country, such as the president of Sudan," the lawyer said.
According to him, the International Criminal Court can ignore the data of the preliminary investigation conducted by a country and decide to conduct the preliminary investigation itself.
The Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted in Rome on July 17, 1998. The Republic of Armenia signed the Charter on October 1, 1999, but has not ratified it yet. This made it necessary to reapply to the Constitutional Court to verify its compliance with the new Constitution of 2015. After all, the process was interrupted by a Constitutional Court decision of August 13, 2004, when the Rome Statute was found to contradict the 1995 Constitution.
The purpose of the statute is to create an International Criminal Court to complement national criminal jurisdictions. Its purpose is to eliminate impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes mentioned therein. This is supposed to contribute to the prevention of similar crimes in the future.
