Supreme Judicial Council makes a decision on subjecting three judges — Zaruhi Nakhshkaryan, Artur Stepanyan, Napoleon Ohanyan to disciplinary liability

The Supreme Judicial Council granted the motion filed by the Minister of Justice on subjecting three judges to disciplinary liability.

The powers of Zaruhi Nakhshkaryan, Judge of the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction of the city of Yerevan have been terminated on the basis of substantial disciplinary violation.

Judge Zaruhi Nakhshkaryan committed violations of the code of conduct of a judge, i.e. Zaruhi Nakhshkaryan expressed a public opinion on the case under examination at the court on the day preceding the publication of the decision made by the Supreme Judicial Council on the issue of subjecting Judge Anna Pilosyan to disciplinary liability, as well as publicly casted doubt on the given judicial act and the actions of the Court after publication of the concluding part of the mentioned decision on 26 December 2022.

In particular, among other evaluations, the Judge had qualified the decision of the Supreme Judicial Council as unexpected and problematic from the perspective of proportionality; based on the decision taken, the Judge had qualified the failure to provide solution to the workload of the courts by the state as a tendency with the aim to subject the judges to liability before the Supreme Judicial Council. Besides, the Judge singled out the members of the Supreme Judicial Council having voted in favour of terminating the powers of Anna Pilosyan as a type of disciplinary penalty, and emphasised — in a post made on the social website “Facebook” — that they had to live with the decision they had made, stating that “It is those persons who have voted in favour that will live with this decision; neither Pilosyan, nor the society, THOSE PERSONS”.

The Supreme Judicial Council awarded a reprimand to Artur Stepanyan, Judge of the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction of the city of Yerevan".

Disciplinary proceedings were instituted on the grounds that Artur Stepanyan committed violations of the norms of procedural law; particularly, he had conducted an examination of the case on an employment dispute through breach of procedural timeframes, i.e. in 11 months, while he published the judicial act in the case and provided it to the sides 1 year after the defined period.

Napoleon Ohanyan, Judge of the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction of Syunik Marz, was also subjected to disciplinary liability. A warning was issued to the Judge.

Within the framework of the plea bargaining proceedings, the Judge had imposed a punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 5 months against the accused. By conditionally not applying the imposed punishment, he had defined a probation period for a term of 1 year and 6 months, as well as by declaring the accused in other criminal cases guilty, he had imposed a punishment in the form of imprisonment and by conditionally not applying the imposed punishment — he had defined a probation period for a term of 1 year and 6 months.

The violations committed by the Judge were demonstrated through the absence of power of the court to impose punishment in the form of imprisonment, since those accused in cases had committed crimes of minor gravity for the first time and there were no final judicial acts entered into force against them, therefore, the rule on retroactive effect of legislation was enacted.

Moreover, the Court had no power to confirm the protocols on plea bargaining since the punishment defined as a result of plea bargaining did not comply with the relevant provisions of the general part of the criminal law. In such conditions, the Court had to define a maximum of 15-days period to draw up a new protocol and present it to the Court.