Over 100 lawyers to hold strike in Armenia against methods of CoC

On June 10 and 11, 117 Armenian lawyers are going to hold a two-day strike in protest against the working methods of the Court of Cassation (CoC), in particular, against the "arbitrariness in the application of a number of laws." The aim of the strike is to draw the attention of all the branches of power to the unacceptable practices of the Armenian CoC, including the use of "double standards", the lawyer Sona Margaryan told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Let us note here that the initiative group, whose members are the members of the Armenian Bar, issued a statement addressed to the judges of the CoC, which was approved by more than 100 lawyers. The statement says that since 2007, the Armenian Judicial Code and the Procedural Codes have established new criteria for accepting cassation appeals for consideration.

However, the CoC, according to the lawyers, by using the uncertainty of the admission criteria of cassation appeals to consideration, has repeatedly revealed arbitrariness in the application of the law, resulting in the fact that "still not a single act is known, in which the decision to accept the appeal to consideration was motivated."

According to the statement, another problem is that the CoC, being vested by the Constitution with the duty to ensure the uniform application of the law, often ignores its own legal positions, and sometimes takes decisions that are contrary to its former ones, without explaining why it has deviated from its own precedents.

So far, the CoC has not commented on the lawyers' actions and statements.