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On June 12, 2015, Artur Sakunts and Arayik Zalyan, representatives of Hayk Movsisyan’s successor Heghine Petrosyan, received the decree by the RA Court of Cassation Criminal Chamber of February 27, 2015 on upholding the cassation appeal submitted by them. In June 2011, Hayk Movsisyan, who suffered mental health problems, was drafted to the army. According to the investigating agency, during his service, Hayk Movsisyan inflicted self-injury to avoid his service duties for some time, and a criminal case was initiated on this occasion under the RA Criminal Code. Hayk Movsisyan was charged with the crime, and afterwards the criminal case was sent with a guilty verdict to the First Instance Court of General Jurisdiction of Syunik Marz (Region).

By judgment of November 20, 2012, Hayk Movsisyan was found guilty and sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment. 7 days after the announcement of the judgment, Hayk Movsisyan died in his cell 8 of the isolation ward in Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. On the following day after the incident, the NKR General Prosecutor’s Office High-Profile Cases Department initiated criminal proceedings on the death of the NKR Police Penitentiary Department Isolation Ward detainee Hayk Movsisyan, which was however discontinued some time later based on the consideration that Hayk Movsisyan committed a suicide. In April 2013, the RA Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan appealed the RA Syunik Marz (Region) General Jurisdiction Court ruling of November 20, 2012. On April 16, 2013, the

RA Criminal Court of Appeal ruled to uphold the appeal of the RA Prosecutor General. Accordingly, it dismissed the ruling of the Syunik Marz (Region) General Jurisdiction Court of November 20, 2012, found Hayk Movsisyan not guilty of the crime and acquitted him posthumously due to lack of element of crime. Under the same case, the acting Prosecutor General (as Aghvan Hovsepyan was away on a business trip) filed a cassation appeal with no understandable logic to again declare Hayk Movsisyan guilty.

Upon the verdict of not guilty, the RA Special Investigation Service initiated a criminal case based on abuse of power by officials. It is quite noteworthy that throughout the preliminary investigation, Hayk Movsisyan was not recognized as a victim, and Heghine Petrosyan’s representatives applied on this account to first instance court and court of appeal which dismissed the appeals. The courts above explained their rulings by the fact that before being filed to court, the challenged ruling had not been appealed before the superior prosecutor, whereas the RA Criminal Procedure Code provided for no such procedure.

Heghine Petrosyan’s (mother of Hayk Movsisyan who committed a suicide) representatives, Artur Sakunts, Chairman of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor, and lawyer Arayik Zalyan, filed a cassation appeal on this account. The appeal particularly features that the exercise of the right to judicial protection was unreal, i.e. Heghine Petrosyan had no real opportunity to restore her allegedly violated rights, freedoms and legal interests.

The appellants presented numerous grounds in their cassation appeal on the account that Hayk Movsisyan was a victim and that the rulings by the RA courts of law were unfair and requested that the RA Court of Cassation dismissed the ruling of the RA Criminal Court of Appeal of July 4, 2014 and sent the case to the same court for examination in a new composition. By decree of the Court of Cassation of February 27, 2015 received some 3 and a half months later, the cassation appeal of HCA Vanadzor Chairman Artur Sakunts and lawyer Arayik Zalyan, representatives of Hayk Movsisyan’s mother Heghine Petrosyan, was upheld, the rulings of the first instance court of general jurisdiction of Kentron and Nork-Marash administrative districts of Yerevan and of the Court of Appeal were dismissed and the case was sent to the first instance court of general jurisdiction of Kentron and Nork-Marash administrative districts of Yerevan  for re-examination.

In the ruling above, the Court of Cassation stated that the lower courts had wrongly concluded that the appellant’s representatives had violated the procedure for appealing the actions of the preliminary investigation agency on recognizing a person a party to trial.

According to the RA Criminal Procedure Code, Criminal Procedure Law, considerable violations shall cover “/…/ violations of the principles and other general provisions of this Code during judicial examination, which obstruct the comprehensive, complete and impartial investigation of the facts of the case and affect or may affect anyhow the adequate decision making on the case, through depriving the persons involved in the case of their rights guaranteed by law or restricting such rights or otherwise.”

The above serves as a ground for the Court of Cassation to reverse the judicial acts of the lower courts of law based on Article 419 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code and send the case to the court of first instance for re-examination.