Published on 26 September 2022
FOURTH SECTION
Applications nos. 45401/15 and 57374/15
Shant HARUTYUNYAN and Others against Armenia
and Armen HOVHANNISYAN against Armenia
lodged on 15 September 2015 and 12 November 2015 respectively
communicated on 7 September 2022
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
At the relevant time, Mr Shant Harutyunyan was an opposition politician and the leader of a political party called “Tseghakron”, while the remaining applicants were his supporters. From 30 October 2013 onwards Mr Shant Harutyunyan organised sit-in protests at Freedom Square and announced that on 5 November 2013 a protest march would take place to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. He did not disclose the route of the planned march, including to the other protesters, and no authorisation had been sought for it.
On 5 November 2013, before the commencement of the march, Mr Shant Harutyunyan gave a press conference to the journalists, during which he stated, inter alia, “Yeah, we should go, what else we can do; [with] gasoline bottles, I will not just torch the President’s office but will burn it down...”. Then the protesters, including the applicants, armed with shovel shafts and improvised incendiary devices, started to march towards Mashtots Avenue. According to the testimony of several police officers, initially the march unfolded peacefully. However, when Mr Shant Harutyunyan stepped onto the carriageway of Mashtots Avenue, he was pulled back by a police officer. This incident apparently provoked a confrontation between the police and the applicants. The situation grew worse when one of the protesters, followed by others, threw his incendiary device at the feet of the police officers. The police attempted to arrest the applicants; the latter resisted by force and some hit the police officers with their sticks, including two plain-clothes officers. Eventually, all applicants were arrested and later charged with hooliganism. As a result of the clashes, two uniformed and two plain-clothes officers suffered injuries.
On 17 October 2014 the trial court convicted the applicants of different counts of hooliganism (see the appended table) and sentenced them to imprisonment ranging from 1.5 to 7 years, apart from Mr Misak Arakelyan who received a fine of AMD 50,000 and Mr Shahen Harutyunyan who was given a four-year suspended sentence since he was a minor. Mr Hayk Harutyunyan and Mr Vahe Mkrtchyan were also found guilty of, respectively, possession of a psychoactive substance and violence against the police. Also, in finding that Mr Armen Hovhannisyan had shown resistance to two police officers by pushing them, the trial court relied on the testimony of one of those officers and on a transcript of video footage which itself was not examined in court.
The applicants’ appeals were dismissed by the higher judicial instances, with the final decision taken on 8 May 2015.
All applicants complain about the disruption of the protest march and their subsequent conviction.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Common questions
1. Was there an interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of peaceful assembly guaranteed by Article 11 of the Convention? In particular, the parties are invited to clarify whether, in the light of the Court’s case-law under Article 11 of the Convention, the assembly was peaceful (see Kudrevičius and Others v. Lithuania [GC], no. 37553/05, § 92, ECHR 2015, and Shmorgunov and Others v. Ukraine, nos. 15367/14 and 13 others, § 491, 21 January 2021).
2. Assuming that Article 11 of the Convention applies, has there been a violation of that Article in the present case?
Case-specific question (application no. 57374/15)
Did the applicant, Mr Hovhannisyan, have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charge against him, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was the trial fair, taking into account that the domestic courts relied on testimony of a police officer actively involved in the events at issue when finding that the applicant had shown resistance to the police (see Mushegh Saghatelyan v. Armenia, no. 23086/08, § 207, 20 September 2018)?
APPENDIX
No.
Application no.
Case name
Lodged on
Applicant
Year of birth
Acts imputed to each applicant and the penalty imposed
1.
45401/15
Harutyunyan and Others v. Armenia
15/09/2015
Shant HARUTYUNYAN
1965
Hit two police officers with a baton;
6 years’ imprisonment
Shahen HARUTYUNYAN
1999
Hit a police officer with a megaphone causing light damage to his health (concussion and contusion to the left frontotemporal area);
suspended sentence of 4 years
Albert MARGARYAN
1965
Threw incendiary devices; hit two plain-clothes officers with his baton, injuring one of them (contusion wound to his nose, causing light damage to health);
6 years’ imprisonment
Vardan VARDANYAN
1965
Hit a plain-clothes officer, due to which the latter fell, and continued to hit him with his baton; pushed and scuffled with a uniformed officer;
5 years’ imprisonment
Alek POGHOSYAN
1970
Attempted to hit a police officer with his baton;
4 years’ imprisonment
Avetis AVETISYAN
1988
Threw incendiary devices; hit two police officers with his baton;
5 years’ imprisonment
Hayk HARUTYUNYAN
1973
Hit a plain-clothes officer; possessed a psychoactive substance;
4.5 years’ imprisonment
Liparit PETROSYAN
1965
Hit a plain-clothes officer with his baton; offered resistance to a uniformed officer by pushing him;
5 years’ imprisonment
Misak ARAKELYAN
1965
Threw incendiary devices;
fine in the amount of AMD 50,000
Vahe MKRTCHYAN
1972
Grabbed a plain-clothes officer by his shoulders, trying to topple him to the ground; toppled a uniformed officer to the ground by pulling him from behind; grabbed another uniformed officer by his neck and dragged him back; hit him with his baton inflicting injuries (concussion; contusion wound to and scratch on the left upper temporal area and bruise on the upper left eyelid, causing light damage to health); hit another police officer with his baton;
7 years’ imprisonment
Sevak MNATSAKANYAN
1988
Showed resistance to a police officer by grabbing him by his waist and toppling him to the ground;
1.5 years’ imprisonment
2.
57374/15
Hovhannisyan v. Armenia
12/11/2015
Armen HOVHANNISYAN
1975
Threw incendiary devices; showed resistance to two police officers, by pushing them and causing physical pain;
2 years’ imprisonment