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On May 4, 2015, the Court of General Jurisdiction of Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun administrative districts of Yerevan, RA, presided by Judge L. Avetisyan, resumed the trial of the criminal case on the death of a 2-year and 3-month-old Lia Misakyan against Lilit Vardanyan and Zarine Ayvazyan. Note that at the previous court hearing, upon considering the motions by the defense, the judge passed to the stage of court debates, and Prosecutor David Karapetyan,  the victim’s successor Georgi Misakyan /see the speech here/ and his representatives Artur Sakunts and Tatevik Siradeghyan /see the speech here/ made a speech. At the hearing of May 4, 2015, Givi Hovhannisyan, advocate of defendant Lilit Vardanyan, before the publication of the defense speech, filed a motion challenging the judge. G. Hovhannisyan said that during the trial, the Court showed prejudiced and biased attitude in favor of the prosecution, and the defense had reacted to it for a number of times. The advocate supported the fact of judge’s prejudiced attitude by rejection of the defense motions. The advocate also noted that the Court breached the competitiveness law since the court merely by the wish of the prosecution, summoned and questioned a number of persons responsible for the expert examination, whereas it rejected even the well-grounded motions of the Defense to summon and question Argam Hovsepyan, Head of the Expert Examination Committee. G. Hovhannisyan therefore found that the Court acted in favor of the Prosecution, failed to protect the interests of the law and violated the defendants’ right to a fair trial, and he requested the judge to declare self-rejection. The Prosecutor D. Karapetyan objected to the motion in question stating that it lacked any evidence of the biased attitude and merely mentioned that the motions of the Defense were not granted. The Prosecutor found that the court had lawful grounds to reject the motions above and this fact alone could not serve as a basis for challenging the judge. The successor to the victim, G Misakyan also objected to the motion in question, and his representative A. Sakunts said that upholding motions of the aggrieved party can by no means serve a basis for the breach of the competitiveness law. The other representative, Tatevik Siradeghyan, also objected to the motion and asked the court to reject it. The judge thus left to the retiring room to make a ruling. Shortly after, he announced the introduction and conclusion of its ruling. Particularly, after considering in the retiring-room the self-rejection motion filed by the Defense, the judge ruled to dismiss it. Upon announcing the ruling, the court suggested that the Defense made a speech. Lilit Vardanyan’s advocate G. Hovhannisyan noted that he would be short as he considered the charges brought against his client to be illegal and baseless. He also considered it obvious that a verdict of guilty would be issued, and therefore, there was no need to either draw any conclusions or make any analyzes to convince the court that his client was innocent. In his speech, G. Hovhannisyan mentioned that the prosecutor had not presented any evidence in support of the necessity of an additional punishment, whereas during the preliminary investigation, the professional activity of defendant Lilit Vardanyan was not suspended. Then G. Hovhannisyan requested the court to declare his client innocent. Yerem Sargsyan, advocate of defendant Zarine Ayvazyan, noted that he had no enough time to prepare his defense speech as he had not received any copies of the judicial acts on the motions submitted at the previous trial and therefore requested to postpone the court hearing.  The parties to the trial did not object to the motion on postponing the court hearing. The Court granted the motion above and adjourned the hearing. The next hearing on this case was scheduled for May 14, 2015, at 4 pm.