Sefilyan’s Lawyer Accuses Judge of Illegal Conduct, Asks President to Terminate Her Powers

Tigran Hayrapetyan, lawyer of jailed Founding Parliament leader and Karabakh war veteran Zhirayr Sefilyan, has addressed an open letter to Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan – “the person responsible for the implementation of justice” – in which he speaks about the “illegal conduct” by judge Tatevik Grigoryan, who presides over the trial of his client and several other defendants in the case, and requests that Sargsyan terminates her powers.

“Tatevik Grigoryan conducts the hearings in such a way as if she were the head of some institution giving orders to her subordinates,” Hayrapetyan writes on his Facebook page. According to the lawyer, the trial is being conducted with a lot of law violations; at every hearing, he says, the judge “introduces innovations in jurisprudence.”

One of these innovations, Hayrapetyan continues, is the ability of the court to hear the case without the presence of the defendants’ lawyers, and even if the lawyers are present in court, they cannot express their opinion on an issue or object to the actions of the judge: “This is the reason why, after subjecting 8 lawyers to unlawful sanctions, Tatevik Grigoryan held the last 4 hearing without the presence of 6 of the defendants and 8 lawyers.

“Several times in the past some of the defendants refused to stand up as the judge entered the courtroom, and the judge did not react to this in any way. At the second hearing, however, the judge abruptly changed her attitude and began imposing sanction against the defendants for not standing up. This differentiated approach shows that the judge is unprincipled, that she does not have a clear position on the defendants’ conduct and acts solely in the heat of the moment. In such circumstances, it’s hard not to suspect that the judge is guided by someone else’s orders.”

Besides, the lawyer writes, it can not be considered as contempt of court when a person does not rise due to his religious or political views: “What’s more, when Sefilyan tried to explain why he was not standing up, the judge did not allow him to.”

Hayrapetyan also stresses that the removal of defendants from the courtroom is usually carried out by bailiffs; Tatevik Grigoryan, however, does this with the help of police officers. “The courtroom is always full of policemen, and there are practically no bailiffs there. This alone is enough to get the impression that you are present not at a court hearing but at some kind of a military event,” Hayrapetyan writes.

At the end of his letter, the lawyer cites one of Serzh Sargsyan’s speeches on justice: “Today we are announcing a new stage in the war against injustice. […] Any injustice, especially when committed by a judge, should be regarded as an act of treachery against the future of our homeland.”