Vahagn Ghumashyan (2018, March)

On July 10 of 2018, the Criminal Court of Appeal (chaired by Judge A. Danielyan) made a decision to satisfy the appeal submitted by Araks Melkonyan, defender of Vahagn Ghumashyan and to partially overturn the decision made by the RA First Instance Court of Yerevan (chaired by the Judge D. Balayan) on May 8 of 2018.

On April 22 of 2018, V. Ghumashyan was brought to the Arabkir Police Station for the suspicions prescribed by the characteristics of Paragraph 2 of Article 225 of the RA Criminal Code for participating in mass disorders during the demonstrations organized within the period of April 13-16 of 2018.

On the same day, near 17:20 PM, Ghumashyan was arrested by the investigator of the Special Investigation Service. Since the moment of detention, within the period of 13:50 – 17:20, V. Ghumashyan was deprived of his right to call his advocate and only after the recording of the arrest he was enabled to make a call.

On April 25 of 2018, Araks Melkonyan, the defender of Vahagn Ghumashyan, submitted an appeal to the Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan on illegalities of his detention, as well as on the demand to recognize the violation of his rights.

On May 8 of 2018, the Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan partially satisfied the appeal of A. Melkonyan, confirming the fact of V. Ghumashyan’s arrest being illegitimate.

According to the court, no violation of the right to make a call or of the violation to protection was recorded and the latter were explained as the rights stemming from the restrictions of his rights and after his arrest, he was able to contact his advocate within reasonable deadlines as prescribed by the law.

The advocate appealed the given decision in the RA Criminal Court of Appeal, demanding to confirm the fact of violating V. Ghumashyan’s right to make an urgent call and ask for an advocate.

The Criminal Court of Appeal satisfied the appeal, confirming that legal guarantees as prescribed both by domestic and international contracts of the current case have not been ensured, particularly, after being detained suspiciously (under the conditions of detainee) the right of Vahagn Ghumashyan to make an urgent call was violated.

According to the court, after a while from the detention, the enabling of the right to make an urgent call does not correspond to the principal of the right of the detainee to exercising his right “urgency” by the detainee.

Thus, the court reaffirmed the fact of Vahagn Ghumashyan’s detention being illegitimate, as well as the violation of his right to make an urgent call as a suspect.