The RA
Human Rights Defender has applied to the Constitutional Court, challenging that
the RA Constitutional Law on the Judicial Code of the Republic of Armenia does
not provide for a flexible mechanism to properly ensure the constitutional
requirement for a judicial hearings within reasonable time in courts.
The issue
concerns Article 9 of the Code, that only establishes the circumstances to be
taken into account when assessing the reasonableness of the duration of judicial
hearing. The mentioned article doesn’t provide for legislative means for
restoring a violated right judicial hearing within reasonable time. It appears
that under current legal regulations, the judicial hearing may be postponed for
years, and it may not entail any consequence for the court.
Particularly,
as provided by the 2019 Annual Report of the Supreme Judicial Council, there
are 155 criminal and 1628 civil proceedings in Yerevan, that last for more than
two years (there are even cases that are examined for more than 10 years). Only
7 judges have up to 1123 such cases.
The study
of international experience reveals that the appeal of a judgment, or consideration
of a reasonable time in an ongoing case by another court and claims for
compensation of non-pecuniary damage, or an initiation of disciplinary
proceedings with respect to a judge and imposition of a disciplinary liability are
not effective mechanisms for filling the existing legislative gap.
Measures
preventing violations of the right to judicial hearing within reasonable time are
widespread within the international legal system: however, the domestic
regulations do not provide for such measures.
According
to the Human Rights Defender’s position, the constitutional right to court
hearing within a reasonable time is not fully ensured due to the existing
legislative gap. This, in turn, results in the unnecessary restriction of the
right to an effective remedy, prescribed by Article 13 of the European
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
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