Armenian Government Representative Asks ECHR Grand Chamber to Reopen Lost Case

Gevorg Kostanyan, the Armenian government representative at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), has asked the ECHR Grand Chamber to hear the case of Vardanyan and Nanushyan v. Armenia, Armtimes.com reports, citing the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Vahe Grigoryan. According to the lawyer, the case would be reopened should the Court decide to accept Kostanyan’s request.

Recall, the ECHR had last year issued a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, according to which Armenia had violated the applicants’ rights to fair trial and to respect for private and family life.

The applicants, spouses Yuri Vardanyan and Shushanik Nanushyan, and their son, Artashes Vardanyan, are former residents of a house on Yerevan’s Byuzand street who argued that they had been arbitrarily deprived of their plot of land and house “in the scope of alienation of private property for public purposes” and were only paid 54 million drams in compensation; the market value of the plot, meanwhile, was AMD 276 million at the time of alienation.

The ECHR had called on Armenia’s government and the applicants to submit written observations on the amount of damages to be awarded to the applicants and to notify the Court of any agreement that they might reach. Note, in their complaint, the applicants had demanded that Armenia pay them about 11 million euros for the plot of land, and about 1 million euros for the house.

The ECHR had also upheld applicants’ complaint that they had been denied a fair trial in Armenian courts. The applicants had alleged that the judge presiding over the Cassation Court hearings regarding the land, Armen Mkrtumyan, had not been impartial, as he had tried on multiple occasions to convince Yuri Vardanyan to sign a settlement agreement. On one occasion, the judge even went as far as to say that he was giving Vardanyan “this one last chance” to settle. According to the ECHR ruling, “the judge’s conduct, lacking in the necessary detachment demanded by the principle of judicial neutrality, raised an objectively justified fear that he lacked impartiality when deciding the applicant’s case.”