Investigating agency decided to question the expert and on the same day discontinued the criminal proceedings
18:22, June 7, 2016 | News, Own news | Children's rights, Right to Fair Trial, Right to Life | Elen Parsadanyan
Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor reported before that the motion submitted under the criminal case initiated on young Elen Parsadanyan’s death had been granted partially, and accordingly, the expert responsible for the forensic examination should be questioned.
Note that the forensic examination stated in defense of the medical personnel of Arabkir Medical Center that Elen Parsadanyan’s death was caused by a congenital disease. The aggrieved party expressed its disagreement by submitting a motion requiring to question the expert responsible for additional panel expert examination and to carry out investigative actions to reveal the circumstances due to which the child’s congenital disease mentioned in the forensic examination opinion had not been detected earlier. Only the first part of the motion was granted.
On April 16, 2016, on the very day when it was decided to grant the motion on questioning the expert, the proceedings of this criminal case, notable for a number of infringements, were discontinued again. It is noteworthy that the decision on discontinuing the criminal proceedings contains not a single word on questioning the expert. The aggrieved party received this decision on May 26, 2016, over a month after the date it was issued.
Note that earlier, upon getting familiar with the opinion of the forensic examination undertaken within the criminal proceedings initiated on the same incident on February 5, 2014, the aggrieved party expressed its disagreement on the opinion and stated that it would express its positions later in writing. However, as we have already informed, on the same day the investigating agency decided to discontinue the criminal proceedings by depriving the aggrieved party of the opportunity to express in a written motion its disagreement with the forensic examination.
The decision of the investigating agency was appealed to a court of law, and as a result, the court identified the violations of the rights and freedoms of the aggrieved party and ruled to send the case for re-examination.
Attorney Ani Chatinyan, representative of the victim’s successor and lawyer at HCA Vanadzor, appealed to higher authorities the decision on discontinuing the criminal proceedings dated April 16, 2016. By its complaint to the prosecutor’s office of Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun administrative districts of Yerevan city, RA, the aggrieved party expressed a position that the investigation was one-sided and no actions were taken to detect the circumstances of the child’s congenital disease that caused her death.
Given the numerous shortcomings, the forensic examinations failed to reveal the root cause of the death.
The link between the decisions on granting the motion on questioning the expert and on discontinuing the criminal proceedings is unclear too, the more so because the latter decision makes no mention of the motion above.