By Gevorg Tosunyan
Armenia’s process for selecting a new judge for the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) raises concerns about transparency of the selection procedure. In August 2023 a commission was formed in Armenia to receive applications, conduct interviews, and select candidates. The country has presented three candidates to the Council of Europe’s Advisory Panel on the Election of Judges, which will provide opinions before the final selection by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
The European Court of Human Rights is an international tribunal created to enforce the European Convention on Human Rights. It is a body of the Council of Europe, and each Member State is allocated one judge to the Court.
The position of Armenia’s ECHR judge has been vacant for over two weeks, following the end of Judge Armen Harutyunyan’s term on September 30.
The Armenian government has cited confidentiality agreements as justification for not disclosing details about inquiries from PACE or other international bodies regarding selection criteria, measurements, and decision criteria. This lack of transparency has fueled concerns about the fairness of the selection.
The composition of the selection commission has also been questioned. The majority of members are government officials affiliated with Armenia’s ruling party. Only one representative from the NGO sector participated in the selection process.
Evaluation criteria for candidates have come under scrutiny as well. While the scoring system covers personal qualities, professional qualifications, and language skills, it lacks a clear mechanism for assessing integrity. Analysis of available interview recordings reveals inconsistencies, with not all commission members asking questions and some queries unrelated to the stated evaluation criteria.
The commission conducted interviews in early April of this year. However, one of the commission members, Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovhannisyan, did not participate in interviews with some candidates, while the Minister of Justice missed an interview with another applicant. CivilNet’s attempt to contact Hovhannisyan as well as the (then) Minister of Justice Grigor Minasyan for clarification went unanswered.
Unlike the vetting process for domestic judges, there was no formal integrity assessment for ECHR judge candidates.
The three selected candidates are Constitutional Court Judge Vahe Grigoryan, Appeals Court Judge Nora Karapetyan, and former Supreme Judicial Council member Vigen Kocharyan.
This selection process contrasts sharply with the 2015 ECHR judge selection, which faced significant criticism from NGOs and rights groups. Surprisingly, the current process has not received similar levels of public or official scrutiny, despite persisting transparency issues.
As Armenia continues to navigate its commitments to international human rights mechanisms, the selection of its ECHR judge remains a crucial aspect of its engagement with European institutions. The outcome of this process will likely have significant implications for Armenia’s representation in cases before the ECHR and its broader participation in the European human rights framework.
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