Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

The Helsinki Citizens' Assembly-Vanadzor  has noted a concerning approach in several important strategic cases where the Criminal Court of General Jurisdiction of the First Instance and the Anti-Corruption Court of Armenia, due to subject-matter jurisdiction, have caused problems in ensuring the proper examination of cases.  

Specifically, in one case, each of the Criminal Court of General Jurisdiction of the First Instance and the Anti-Corruption Court of Armenia decided that the case was not under their jurisdiction in response to the complaint submitted to them and refused to hear the complaint without redirecting it according to jurisdiction. In other cases, there has been an uncontrollable loop of transferring the presented case between these courts “according to subject-matter jurisdiction”, indicating the ambiguity of the courts' powers and the scope of cases they are to examine, which simultaneously leads to the disruption of justice and the examination of the essence of the case.  

As a result, the principle of judicial accessibility is operating ineffectively due to judges not properly addressing the issue of jurisdiction related to appeals, which simultaneously violates the legislative requirement for a reasonable examination of the case. Consequently, the deadlines established by the Armenian Criminal Procedure Code for reviewing appeals are not being upheld, making judicial protection ineffective in such cases.  

Within a year, this problem has already been recorded in four of the strategic cases carried out by the HCAV, when, as a result of similar "transfers" between these courts, the legal guarantee of a proper, complete and objective examination of the strategic affairs of the office was violated. Therefore, in order to provide a systemic solution to such a vicious judicial practice, a corresponding application was submitted to the Supreme Judicial Council with reference to all those cases, with the request to ensure the formation of a unified practice in the judicial system of the Republic of Armenia.