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On November 7, 2016, HCA Vanadzor submitted to the Department for the Execution of ECtHR Judgments a reference on the execution of Nalbandyan v. Armenia judgment. 

The reference stresses that the Government failed to ensure the full execution of the judgment; the incident of ill-treatment is not examined properly and thoroughly and the officers responsible for ill-treatment remain unpunished. Thus, the issue of ill-treatment receives no final and systemic resolution.

Note that in Nalbandyan v. Armenia, the Court particularly found violations of Article 3 (Prohibition of torture) and Article 6 (Right to a fair trial) of the Convention which serve as new circumstances for reviewing the previous judicial acts.

Based on the ECtHR judgment, on September 11, 2015 Seda Safaryan, attorney of the Nalbandyans, submitted an appeal to the RA Cassation Court on initiating review proceedings on the basis of the new circumstance. While the Cassation Court admitted the appeal and then on June 24, 2016 upheld it, the appellants have not received the court ruling so far; the 2 criminal cases have not been sent for re-examination, and convict Narine Nalbandyan has already served the largest part of her sentence, 13 years, at ‘Abovyan’ penitentiary facilities. The attorney’s application on receiving the rulings submitted to the Court of Cassation remained unanswered.

In response to HCA Vanadzor’s reference, the Council of Europe Department for the Execution of ECtHR Judgments stated that the provided information was forwarded to the Permanent Representation of Armenia to the Council of Europe in compliance with Article 46(2) of the ECHR (the final judgment of the Court shall be transmitted to the Committee of Ministers, which shall supervise its execution).

Note that NGOs’ right to submit to the CoE Committee of Ministers information on execution of the ECtHR judgments is stipulated by Rule 9(2) of the Regulations.