Monitoring of RA Special Investigation Service Activities for Investigating Ill-Treatment/Torture Cases
11:41, September 23, 2015 | News, Own news | Special Investigation ServiceStarting from February 1, 2015, the Monitoring of RA Special Investigation Service Activities for Investigating Ill-Treatment/Torture Cases Project has been implemented at the RA Special Investigation Service with the financial support of the Open Society Foundations-Armenia. The Project aims to improve the mechanisms of control over the activities of the Special Investigation Service as a guarantee for effective investigation into ill-treatment/torture cases. To identify the issues related to the cases above, the Project intended to collect information with the help of lawyers from state agencies and mass media as well as to monitor the cases investigated by the SIS and develop opportunities for further use of monitoring results. Particularly, the Project intended to monitor the judicial review of the legality and validity of the ongoing ill-treatment/torture proceedings by the RA SIS and decrees made during the pre-trial proceedings. The monitoring actions revealed notable details for preliminary assessments; particularly, domestic violence criminal cases turned out to end up in pre-trial proceedings by a decree on dismissing or discontinuing such proceedings; this serves another evidence of the RA SIS practices and grave problems in the system. In response to the inquiry to V. Shahinyan, Head of the RA SIS, A. Mnatsakanyan, Chief of Staff General Division, RA SIS, suggested obtaining the required information from the persons responsible for its disposal, namely the RA Prosecutor General’s Office and the RA Police Information Center though the institutions above receive information exclusively for statistics. As the Organization received no response to its inquiry, it filed a claim with the RA Administrative Court to bind the RA SIS to provide the necessary information by considering the constitutional right to the freedom of information stating that the public authorities and local governments shall undertake to ensure access to the information on their activities and stressing that the RA Special Investigation Service was considered responsible for disposal of the information in question. To obtain information on the proceedings investigated in 2013 and 2014, within the Project, inquiries were sent to the RA Judicial Department, RA Police and RA Prosecutor General’s Office. The latter has not responded to any of the Organization’s inquiries so far. To collect relevant information from the lawyers involved in ill-treatment/torture proceedings, under the Project an inquiry was also sent to A. Zohrabyan, Chairman of RA Chamber of Advocates. Currently, the Organization monitors the judicial review cases of the legality and validity of the decrees made during the pre-trial proceedings by the RA SIS; this monitoring process will continue in the coming months.