Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairperson, dear colleagues

I would like to welcome the initiative of comprehensive improvement of the institutions providing for the international judicial protection of human rights. For assuring its effectiveness, we should be prepared from the very beginning to pay adequate attention to a number of challenges we are already facing, which, given a fertile ground, would simply lead to the failure of any good initiative.

I do not intend to cover in detail the positions of the Armenian delegation with regard to such and other similar issues, for those have been submitted to the organisers in a separate document.

Rather, I would like to address certain essential issues. Firstly, in my opinion, we should be consistent in assuring that both national judicial instances and the European Court of Human Rights are able to avoid the threat of resolving purely political issues, and moreover, becoming a tool to that end. Unfortunately, procedures in place reserve abundant possibilities for the High Court to engage, whether they wish so or not, in the resolution of purely political issues.

The abundance of improper and ill-founded complaints is really distressing, but it should justly be mentioned that their majority is arranged by the political forces that aim to resolve merely political issues and exert political pressure rather than uphold the protection of human rights.

It is not, after all, surprising that within a short period of time several hundred complaints were received, identical both in terms of their content and form. This trick, by the way, is used not only for gaining a dominant position in international relations, but also for exerting mutual pressures between the opposition and the authorities in national politics. Please note that this does not refer to justified influence.

I believe that the above statements suggest the necessity to clearly distinguish the inter-state cases from private ones.

Thus, we should accept that the profusion of complaints is often conditioned not by the lack of legal knowledge or unawareness of the case law of the Court, but rather by the intention of forces adept in the sphere to realise certain plans. I would like to add that the Court, being drawn into such complex political issues, is eventually deprived of the opportunity to realise its inherent mission.

I do not intend to dwell upon all the issues from the political perspective, for it is obvious that the difficulties can be coped with only through introduction of adequate legal solutions. In my subsequent speech, I will try to cover the measures that we have elaborated.

Thank you for attention.

Gevorg Danielyan
Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia
Doctor, Professor of Jurisprudence

18.02.2010

Speech

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairperson, dear colleagues

I would like to express my agreement with the representatives of the European Court and my colleagues who find that the scope of reforms should also cover the entire national system – both judicial instances and competent public authorities.

I would therefore like to provide, in brief, the list of the measures that we favour most:

- Within the framework of revising the laws, drafts are necessarily considered from the perspective of the requirements of the case law of the European Court. Meanwhile, the institute of social impact assessment of legal acts has been introduced, enabling to foresee the potential consequences of the given act with regard to the guarantees for human rights;

- Judgments of the European Court will soon be considered as new circumstances for reviewing final judicial acts;

- Relations pertaining to unconditional enforcement of the judgments of the European Court as well as to the liability of responsible public officials have received a clear-cut regulation.

National reforms in this area are underway. However, I would like to note that we are counting on adequate reforms at international level as well. The following issues are of particular importance to us:

- Separation of the complaints concerning human rights violations from the issues related to inter-state disputes, and establishment of special procedures for the examination of the latter;

- Introduction of judicial fees, by prescribing certain exemptions for indigent persons;

- Fundamental revision of procedures for providing for compensation as this is a matter of exclusively domestic character and creates an undue burden for the international judicial instance.

We are confident that we have the same objectives and goal, and certain inevitable disagreements may not hinder the accomplishment of the undertaken reforms.

As I have already mentioned, we have presented our remarks in a systematic manner with a separate document. Hereby, I would like to conclude my speech.

Meanwhile, I would like to extend my gratitude to the organisers of this event and to our Swiss colleagues on behalf of the Armenian delegation.

Thank you for attention.

Gevorg Danielyan
Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia
Doctor, Professor of Jurisprudence


19.02.2010