Attorney Vahe Grigoryan wrote on Facebook, referring to today’s action of blocking the entrances and exits of all the courts in the country, as announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Here are excerpts from his FB statement:
“The Prime Minister’s late evening call, according to which the entrances and exits of the courts should be blocked in the morning, may be unexpected for many. Not for me. […] What is my response to this call, how do I understand it?
As a free citizen of the Republic of Armenia, I would stand in front of the doors of my preferred court and greet any judge or court staff member who wished to enter the building, and even if I didn’t have an opportunity and chance to say this, I would consider that they will read in my eyes, that I know they or their colleague:
– Were judges who put political prisoners in jail. People who should not be in prisons, but because of their or their colleagues’ injustice, the political prisoners and their family have been wasting their lives in the prisons. For the Republic of Armenia.
– Have brought Armenia to a stage where the world’s first ever specification for standards to determine political prisoner status were created by referring to the situation and the practice of political imprisonment in Armenia. Again, for the Republic of Armenia.
Thousands of ordinary citizens like me have been deprived of their homes for the super-profits of political and economic groups and then mining industry, and homelessness for me and my family, and emigration for many. For the Republic of Armenia.
– Released murderers and sentenced others through fraud. For the Republic of Armenia.
– Condemned ordinary citizens like me to seek the last hope of justice in the courts of foreign jurisdictions, even though for that specific goal I provide for them and their families at my own expense, and provided them with many guarantees that people of other professions do not have. For the Republic of Armenia.
[…]
And now I am the Republic of Armenia, just like everyone standing next to me. And that I am standing there to have the most honest conversation about what will happen to this day and future of all of us.
I know that there are people among the judges who have remained faithful to their oath. I will search for them among everyone, because I, as the Republic of Armenia, will expect their advancement, realizing that in the years of darkness of justice in Armenia, the fair judge should have the highest honor.
I will not obstruct anyone. If that judge (or court staff) does not consider it an honor to stand in solidarity with me, the citizen, and wait for the message / speech prepared for me, I will do my best so that no one touches them. Because, for me, unlike them, the Republic of Armenia is not a means of self-affirmation or means of unearned livelihood. I am the Republic of Armenia. It is important that they understand that regardless of my attitude towards them, I know that the judge’s robe is sacred, as a symbol of the Republic of Armenia, for me. Like the flag of Armenia, the coat of arms, the epaulettes …
If they think they do not have anything to say to me, I will not hinder them from going to their work. I will silently step aside with my campaigners, opening a corridor toward their workplace. And let it be their “silent corridor of shame”.
And if some people think I have come to unleash my righteous wrath and anger accumulated throughout the decades, I will do my utmost to state that I have come to offer them unity and solidarity.
I hope that representatives of the executive and legislative power of Armenia have the same attitude today, and today will mark the beginning of a new process of transformation in Armenia.
This is the way. There is no other.”
Zara Poghosyan
