Armen Harutyunyan Elected as Armenia’s Judge to European Court of Human Rights

Former Ombudsman Armen Harutyunyan.

The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) elected former Ombudsman Armen Harutyunyan as judge to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Armenia on June 23.

According to a press release issued by PACE, Mr. Harutyunyan, having obtained an absolute majority of votes cast, was elected a judge of the European Court of Human Rights for a term of office of nine years, which shall commence no later than three months after his election.

Judges are elected by PACE from a list of three candidates nominated by each State which has ratified the European Convention on Human Rights.

Armenia’s Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) of PACE conducted two separate selection processes (September-October, 2014 and January-February 2015)  for the position of judge to the ECHR representing Armenia.

During the first selection process, the candidates were Armen Harutyunyan, UN’s Regional Representative for Central Asia and former Ombudsman; Ara Ghazaryan, member of the Rule of Law NGO and Nelik Harutyunyan, Head of the International-Legal Relations Division of the Prosecutor General’s Office.

The ECHR refused the candidacy of Nelik Harutyunyan, stating that her credentials were not sufficient. Thus, the Armenian side brought in lawyer Liana Hakobyan as an alternate candidate.

During the June 9-10 session of the Committee on the Election of Judges to the ECHR, the Committee recommended the candidature of Armen Harutyunyan.

A number of civil society organizations and community of lawyers, including Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center issued a statement last week addressed to PACE. The statement said that the Human Rights NGO Europe in Law Association (ELA) carried out monitoring during the two national contests for the selection of the candidates and found breaches and non-compliance of the selected candidate in accordance to Article 21 of the ECHR in its respective reports published in 2014 and 2015.

The statement said that there was favoritism toward Armen Harutyunyan by the Committee and they had proof of plagiarism on behalf of Harutyunyan “as well as well-substantiated information on the inadequate level of his other important professional and moral qualities.”