ECHR Archives

Who will go from Armenia to ECHR to attend Perincek vs. Switzerland case?

January 24, 2015 By administrator

YEREVAN. – The delegation from Armenia will leave on January 26 to participate in the hearing of the “Dogu Perincek vs. Switzerland” case, which will be held on January 28 at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Grand Chamber.

The sources of Armenian News-NEWS.am have informed the aforesaid.

From Armenia, Prosecutor General Gevorg Kostanyan, Deputy Prosecutor General Emil Babayan, and Deputy Minister of Justice Arman Tatoyan, will go to the ECHR to attend the hearing.

In addition, internationally renowned attorneys Geoffrey Robertson, Amal Ramzi Clooney—the wife of famous actor George Clooney—, and Toby Collis will defend Armenia’s interest at the European court.

All six attorneys, who will be representing Armenia, are expected to address the ECHR.

In 2008, a Swiss court had convicted Dogu Perincek for denying the Armenian Genocide. In December 2013, the ECHR had ruled in favor of Perincek’s lawsuit that was filed against Switzerland. Subsequently, the Government of Switzerland had decided to petition that the Dogu Perincek case be referred for a review by the ECHR Grand Chamber. Afterward, Armenia had petitioned to the ECHR, and it now acts as a third party in this case.

Dogu Perincek is Chairman of the socialist Workers’ Party of Turkey. In addition, he heads the Talat Pasha organization, which actively fights against the Armenian Genocide’s recognition in Europe.

The ban was lifted out abroad, Perinchek attending the appeal hearing

January 20, 2015 By administrator

Labor Party Chairman Dogu Perinçek be seen in the ECHR Grand Chamber “Perinchek-Swiss Case” appeal hearing will be held on 28 January.

Ergenekon in the prison area, and the Supreme Court’s decision on Perincek who was released after the breach given because of the long detention, judicial control by implementing an exit ban was placed abroad.

To lift the ban on overseas output Perinçek reviewing the applications made by the prompt Istanbul Heavy Penal Court No. 4, lifted the ban.

Thus, the Court may participate in the hearing of the case on appeal on January 28 Perinchek.

ECHR Grand Chamber to be seen “Perinchek-Swiss Case” appeal hearing, the center of Strasbourg, Council of Europe carrying out the work of the Parliamentary Assembly of the ruling and opposition parties members members deputies to the delegation to Turkey, Turkey will follow on behalf of Parliament.

Perinçek, Switzerland 10 years ago removed “which prohibits the denial of the Armenian genocide” after the entry into force of the law had given several conferences going on this country.

Perinçek, speech rejecting the Armenian Genocide was sentenced to prison by the courts because of Switzerland. Thereupon he carries Perinchek subject ECHR.

The Court of December 17, 2013 decision that takes due punishment of Switzerland ruled that Perincek found in human rights violations, Switzerland’s European Court of Human Rights ruled that a violation of Article 10 of the Convention on freedom of expression

Court of appeal made by the Swiss had agreed to be evaluated by the Grand Chamber.

‘Genocide Case’ Perinchek-known Swiss case of the hearing will be held January 28 Armenia and Turkey will also be involved with the government.

British attorneys, Swiss state and Armenia to defend Armenian Genocide issue

December 24, 2014 By administrator

YEREVAN. – Armenia to have a strong team of attorneys in Strasbourg at the appeal of Perincek vs. Switzerland case before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights on Jan. 28, Armenian News – NEWS.am reports.

The case involves the conviction by Swiss national courts of a minor Turkish political party leader Dogu Perincek, who had traveled to Switzerland in 2005 with the explicit intent of denying the truth of the Armenian Genocide.

In Strasbourg Armenia will be represented by Amal Ramzi Alamuddin, wife of prominent actor and human rights activist George Clooney, a highly regarded London attorney specializing in international law, criminal law, human rights, and extradition. Eminent British lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC, who is the joint head of Alamuddin’s Doughty Street Chambers, will also represent Armenia in vs. Switzerland case.

Amal Ramzi Alamuddin has been involved in several major court hearings such as defending Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She has also worked with the Prosecutor of the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. Alamuddin was born in Lebanon to a Druze father and Sunni Muslim mother in 1978. At the age of two, her family moved to the Britain. She received her law degree from New York University School of Law and clerked at the International Court of Justice. After returning to London in 2010, she became a barrister at the Doughty Street Chambers. She served as advisor to Kofi Annan, UN Special Envoy on Syria, and as Counsel to the 2013 UN Drone Inquiry team.

Geoffrey Robertson QC, a founder and joint head of Doughty Street Chambers, has had a distinguished career as a trial and appellate counsel, an international judge, and author of leading textbooks. He has argued many landmark cases in media, constitutional and criminal law, in the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, British Supreme Court, the UN War Crimes courts and the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

Note that in 2008, Perincek appealed the Swiss ruling to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). A majority of five out of seven ECHR judges ruled in 2013 that Switzerland had violated Perincek’s right to free expression. According to experts, the ruling was an unfair and unacceptable double standard, as the court considered denial of the Jewish Holocaust a crime, while Armenian Genocide denial an infringement on free speech. Azbarez noted that the five judges who ruled against Switzerland made countless judgmental and factual errors, misrepresenting Perincek’s allegations, misinterpreting Switzerland’s laws and court rulings, lacking basic knowledge of the Armenian Genocide, and repeatedly contradicting themselves. Two of the seven judges disagreed with the majority’s ruling and submitted a comprehensive 19-page report on the Armenian Genocide, siding with the Swiss court.

On March 17, 2014, Switzerland decided to appeal the ruling to ECHR’s 17-judge Grand Chamber, to defend the integrity of its laws and the country’s legal system. Specifically, the Swiss government challenged the court’s decision on three grounds:

1. ECHR had never before dealt with the juridical qualification of genocide and the scope of freedom of expression;

2. The undue restriction of “the margin of appreciation” available to Switzerland under ECHR’s jurisprudence;

3. The establishment of ‘artificial distinctions’ – in the absence of an international verdict, ECHR should have considered the Turkish Court’s 1919 guilty verdicts against the masterminds of the Armenian Genocide as evidence related to World Court’s jurisprudence.

Sassounian: Amal Clooney to Represent Armenia in European Court

December 23, 2014 By administrator

By Harut Sassounian
Here is a surprising news item being disclosed for the first time in this column—Amal Ramzi Alamuddin, wife of prominent actor and human rights activist George Clooney, will be one of the attorneys representing Armenia next month at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Mrs. Clooney is a highly regarded attorney specializing in international law, criminal law, human rights, and extradition. She has been involved in several major lawsuits such as return of the Elgin Marbles from Great Britain to Greece, and defending Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She has also worked with the Prosecutor of the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.

Amal was born in Lebanon to a Druze father and Sunni Muslim mother in 1978. At the age of two, her family moved to the United Kingdom. She received her law degree from New York University School of Law and clerked at the International Court of Justice (World Court). After returning to London in 2010, she became a barrister at the Doughty Street Chambers. She served as advisor to Kofi Annan, UN Special Envoy on Syria, and as Counsel to the 2013 UN Drone Inquiry team. She is fluent in English, French and Arabic. Her marriage to George Clooney in September 2014 made worldwide headlines.

With such impeccable credentials, Mrs. Clooney will be a great asset to Armenia’s legal team in Strasbourg, in the appeal of Perincek vs. Switzerland before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights on January 28.

The case involves the conviction by Swiss courts of Dogu Perincek, a minor Turkish political party leader, who had travelled to Switzerland in 2005 with the explicit intent of denying the truth of the Armenian Genocide. In 2008, Perincek appealed the Swiss ruling to the European Court of Human Rights. A majority of five out of seven ECHR judges ruled on Dec. 17, 2013 that Switzerland had violated Perincek’s right to free expression.

This ruling was an unfair and unacceptable double standard, as the court considered denial of the Jewish Holocaust a crime, but Armenian Genocide denial an infringement on free speech. The five judges who ruled against Switzerland made countless judgmental and factual errors, misrepresenting Perincek’s allegations, misinterpreting Switzerland’s laws and court rulings, lacking basic knowledge of the Armenian Genocide, and repeatedly contradicting themselves. Two of the seven judges disagreed with the majority’s ruling and submitted a comprehensive 19-page report on the Armenian Genocide, siding with the Swiss court.

1) ECHR had never before dealt with the juridical qualification of genocide and the scope of freedom of expression;

2) The undue restriction of “the margin of appreciation” available to Switzerland under ECHR’s jurisprudence;

3) The establishment of ‘artificial distinctions’ — in the absence of an international verdict, ECHR should have considered the Turkish Court’s 1919 guilty verdicts against the masterminds of the Armenian Genocide as evidence related to World Court’s jurisprudence.

Last year, when ECHR’s lower court was considering Perincek’s case, Armenia did not participate. Turkey, however, intervened by submitting extensive documentation questioning the veracity of the Armenian Genocide. This time around Armenia will take part with a strong legal team, which includes Geoffrey Robertson QC, a preeminent international lawyer and author of the remarkable book, “An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians?” Robertson will be joined in court by his associate Amal Clooney, and two Armenian government representatives Gevorg Kostanyan and Emil Babayan.

It is imperative that on the eve of the Armenian Genocide’s Centennial in 2015, ECHR’s Grand Chamber reverse the lower court’s flawed ruling, restoring the integrity of Swiss laws and preventing Turkey and Perincek from exporting their genocide denialism to Europe and beyond!

Harut Sassounian is the publisher of The California Courier, a weekly newspaper based in Glendale, Calif. He is the president of the United Armenian Fund, a coalition of the seven largest Armenian-American organizations. He has been decorated by the president and prime minister of the Republic of Armenia, and the heads of the Armenian Apostolic and Catholic churches. He is also the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) fines Turkey 58,000 euros in five separate cases

November 13, 2014 By administrator

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has fined Turkey a total of 58,000 euros in five separate cases for violations of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Ümran Durmaz had applied to the ECHR over the authorities’ alleged failure to carry out an effective investigation into the death of her daughter in July 2005. The daughter died in hospital, where she had been taken by her husband after taking an overdose of two medicines, after which Durmaz filed a complaint alleging that her daughter’s husband was responsible for the death.

A forensic medical examination found no trace of medicines or other drugs in the deceased women’s blood, or in other samples taken from her body, but it noted that there was an advanced edema in her lungs. In February 2006, the prosecutor decided to close the investigation, concluding that she had committed suicide.

The ECHR ruled that the Turkish authorities had failed to carry out an effective investigation into the death of the applicant’s daughter, and had therefore violated Article 2 of the European Convention. It ordered Turkey to pay 20,000 euros to Durmaz.

In two other decisions, the ECHR ruled that Turkey had breached Article 3 concerning the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment and 10,000 euros were to be paid to each applicant.

Turkey was also fined 8,000 euros for breaching the right to liberty and security and the right to a speedy review of the lawfulness of detention in the Ali Rıza Kaplan vs. Turkey case, and it also ordered Turkey to pay 2,000 euros each to five applicants in the Dinç and Others vs. Turkey case for exceeding the proper length of legal proceedings.

November/13/2014

ECHR finds Turkey guilty of violating freedom of speech in cases of jailed journalists Şık and Şener

July 8, 2014 By administrator

STRASBOURG

Both Ahmet Şık (L) and Nedim Şener spent more than a year in prison while awaiting trial before the publication of Şık’s book, titled ‘The Imam’s Army.’

The European Court of Human Rights (EHCR) on July 8 found Turkey guilty of violating freedom of speech and the right to a free trial in the prosecution of journalists Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener, who were jailed as part of the controversial OdaTV case.

Both Şık and Şener spent more than a year in prison while awaiting trial before the publication of Şık’s book, titled “The Imam’s Army,” which focused on the organization of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen’s followers within the police and the judiciary.

Their long detentions had sparked global outcry and many campaigns were launched by international rights groups for their release. They were eventually freed on March 12, 2012.

In two separate ECHR rulings for both Şık and Şener, Turkey was found guilty of violating Article 5-3 of the European Convention of Human Rights on the “length and reasonableness of pre-trial,” Article 5-4 on “procedural guarantees of review,” and Article 10 on “freedom of expression.”

The Strasbourg-based court also fined Turkey to pay 10,000 euros in compensation to Şık and 20,000 euros to Şener.

‘Ruling on journalism’

Şener hailed the EHCR’s decision as a ruling that shows journalism is not a crime, noting that the court had accepted their application even before the trial commenced.

“The application was accepted at a time when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described the book as a ‘bomb.’ This decision shows that the book was not a bomb and that journalism is not terrorism,” Şener said.

The two journalists applied to the ECHR in 2012 on the grounds that they had been arrested without concrete evidence and had not been informed of the charges against them. The two also claimed that their freedom of expression was being restricted. The court accepted the application and demanded the Turkish government’s defense in November 2011, setting March 14 as the deadline.

In its July 8 decision, the ECHR also rejected the Turkish government’s argument that the case was reviewed before the exhaustion of internal legal paths.

July/08/2014

ECHR Grand Chamber to hear Swiss appeal on Perincek case

June 4, 2014 By administrator

June 03, 2014 | 20:01

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights agreed to hear an appeal on case of Dogu Perincek case.
The court decided to accept appeal of the Swiss government and hold hearings into the case.

In March Switzerland appealed the 2013 decision by ECHR overturning the conviction of Dogu Perincek for denying the Armenian Genocide.

On 9 March 2007, Turkish national Doğu Perinçek was sentenced in Canton Vaud to both a financial penalty and a criminal fine under Art. 261bis CC for denying the Armenian Genocide. The Cantonal Court of Canton Vaud and the Federal Supreme Court both rejected appeals against the judgment. In its ruling of 17 December 2013, the competent chamber of the European Court of Human Rights determined that the Swiss courts’ rulings violated the appellant’s right to freedom of expression.

Turkey will ignore ECHR ruling to pay compensation to Greek Cyprus

May 13, 2014 By administrator

Sevil Erkuş ANKARA

Turkey will not pay a fine imposed on the country by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for the Turkish military’s 1974 intervention in Cyprus, officials in Ankara have announced.

“In terms of the grounds for this ruling, its method and the fact that it is considering a country that Turkey does not recognize as a counterpart, we see no necessity to make this payment,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said at a press conference on May 13.

The ECHR’s ruling consists of some “legal contradictions” and therefore Turkey does not see it at as binding in terms of payment, he said.

No court can force Turkey to pay a penalty to a state – Greek Cyprus – that it does not recognize, the minister said. “The court has exceeded its authority in intervening into a state-to-state problem.”

Turkey previously refused to pay similar penalties on the ECHR’s Cyprus rulings over individual applications by Greek Cypriots, Turkish diplomatic sources said, also referring to a separate ECHR ruling that Russia did not carry out.

In this case, the Council of Europe Ministers Committee could issue a condemnation against Turkey for implementing the ECHR order.

Ankara will inform ECHR about its decision to not pay the fine, outlining its reasons, according to sources.

In its ruling on a lawsuit filed by Greek Cyprus in 1994, the ECHR found Turkey guilty on May 12 of violating European human rights agreements, stating that the whereabouts of 1,491 Greek Cypriots was still unknown and that 211,000 Greek Cypriots were forced from their homes after Turkey’s intervention in Cyprus in 1974. The ECHR ordered Turkey to pay 30 million euros to be distributed to the living relatives of the missing people, while it said 60 million euros in damages should be paid for “the enclaved Greek-Cypriot residents of the Karpas peninsula.”

Davutoğlu described the timing of the ruling as “not well-intentioned.”

“The ECHR should rule on all the missing people cases, including the Turks in Turkish Cyprus,” he said.