YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS. Former President Robert Kocharyan’s attorney Hayk Alumyan argues that the judge presiding over the court hearing of the complaint filed against the 2nd President’s earlier release from pre-trial detention has been selected unlawfully.

“We were notified that a draw took place in the Court of Appeals, during which the judge for the case for selected. The law doesn’t envisage a draw, as such,” he told reporters outside the courtroom.

“We requested for the judge to present us the record of this draw. Under the legislation,  any action within the framework of a criminal case must be sealed materially. An action cannot be done without being recorded anywhere. The judge said that this kind of a record doesn’t exist. He presented another clarification, by saying that a draw took place, but that he doesn’t know if the president of the court took into consideration the result of the draw or any other standard when tasking him the case,” Alumyan said.

Alumyan says that this argument of the judge caused greater uncertainty for them.

He said they’ve requested the acting president of the court to provide them with the record. They’ve also requested to be provided with the standards that have been applied while selecting this particular judge.

“The acting president of the court wrote that a draw has taken place but that there is no record. In addition, he wrote that the judge was chosen randomly, and based on the workload of judges. According to paragraph 1, article 6 of the European Convention [Human Rights], anyone is entitled to a trial by a tribunal established by law. In any case, when the composition of the court is created, it must be done based on law. And we showed the court that the procedure that has been used in the given case doesn’t exist in law,” Alumyan said.

He said that the prosecution was neutral on the issue, and the examiner said that this judge shouldn’t examine the case.

“If the case has started with breach of law, we don’t expect the outcome to be lawful. We decided to file a peremptory challenge against the judge. We want the case to be tried by the composition that will be selected in accordance with law,” Alumyan said.

The decision about the motion of the challenge will be published today at 17:00.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan