The
Human Rights Defender published an ad hoc report on the lack of mechanisms to
restore a right to judicial hearing within a reasonable time. The Human Rights
Defender also applied to the Constitutional Court in this regard, challenging that
the Judicial Code of the Republic of Armenia does not provide for a flexible
mechanism for ensuring the constitutional requirement to judicial hearing within
a reasonable time.
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.
The
details can be found here:
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