Upon decision of Supreme Judicial Council, powers of Judge of Cassation Court Suren Antonyan are terminated based on motion of Minister of Justice

The Supreme Judicial Council has upheld the motion of the Minister of Justice to subject Judge of the Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation Suren Antonyan to disciplinary liability. The powers of the judge have been terminated on the ground of essential disciplinary violation.

Disciplinary proceedings were instituted following a study on the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rendered on 3 December 2015 under the case of Amirkhanyan vs. Armenia. Under the mentioned judgment, the ECHtR recorded violations of the principle of legal certainty which is an element of part 1 of Article 6 of the Convention and of the right of ownership stipulated by Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the Convention.

The ECHtR stated that the Court of Cassation (with the participation of Judge Suren Antonyan) simply rendered a new decision under the case in question, moreover, without any legal ground. The European Court came to such a conclusion because, in spite of the fact that the Court of Cassation  rendered a decision on 12 April 2007 on returning the cassation appeal filed by the party with the reasoning that there are no grounds to accept the appeal for proceedings, nevertheless, based on the cassation appeal filed by the same party under the same case again nearly after 6 months, the Court, upon another decision of 1 October 2007, accepted the appeal for proceedings and overturned the judicial act of the Civil Court of Appeal.