Judge Pargev Ohanyan of the Kentron and Nork Marash Court of First Instance decided to imprison defendant Andranik Sargsyan simply because his lawyer failed to turn up for the court sessions.

Andranik Sargsyan stood accused of stealing two suits “of considerable value, estimated at 17,500 drams.”

According to the conclusions contained in the accusation, on May 12, 2006, Andranik tried to steal two men's suits from a house number 38 in the second alley of Charents Street, but the owners stopped him in time. During the pre-trial period, the accused signed an agreement to stay in town, as this was a case classified as a “prevented crime”.

The Kentron and Nork Marash Court of First Instance set October 6, 2006 as the trial date, but the defendant did not show up for the first court session. The next session was set for October 23, but was cancelled as well, because defense lawyer Ruben Balabanyan was not present. The session was postponed yet again, based on a request by the defense, but on December 27, 2006, the defendant declared that his lawyer was ill and would be unable to attend. The trial was postponed to January 29, 2007, but according to the judge's notes, the lawyer failed to show up again for unknown reasons.

The angry judge, finally, found a solution. Instead of offering the defendant the chance to find a new lawyer, he decided to imprison him because of his lawyer's absence. The judge assumed that “…the defendant Sargsyan was using different means to delay the legal process and was trying to evade responsibility and punishment by derailing the trial.”

Lawyer Ruben Balabanyan informed us that he was unable to attend the court sessions only because he was also involved in another case and Judge Ohanyan did not consult with him before setting the court dates. Nevertheless, the lawyer managed to make it to court, and on May 8 his client was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison.

At the same time, the judge invoked the decision to grant pardons on the occasion of the 15 th Anniversary of Armenia's Independence, and the defendant left the court a free man.

The lawyer appealed against the verdict of the Court of First Instance and demanded a just decision, because he claimed that his client had never stolen from the mentioned house and that he had only been charged with theft three months into the pre-trial process. Two decisionsextending the pre-trial period noted that there had not been enough evidence to suggest that he had committed theft. The accused, Andranik Sargsyan, stated that he had entered the house to use the toilet and had not intended to steal anything. The first mention of an attempt to steal two suits appeared only 3 months and 15 days after he had been arrested, and was made with no basis.

During the trial in the Court of Appeal for Criminal Cases, the accusers withdrew the first charge and asked that it be restated to match Part 1 of Article 147 of the Criminal Code, trespassing on private property against the owner's will, for which the maximum punishment is two months imprisonment. This charge had nothing to do with the previous verdict and the Court of Appeal has halted the legal process against Sargsyan for this reason. The Court of Appeal also noted that “the imprisonment of the defendant as punishment for his lawyer's absence at the court sessions is not based on the procedural code of the Court and is therefore not justifiable.”

Lawyer Balabanyan disputed the second accusation against his client as well and justified this during the pre-trial period by stating that his client saw that the door of the house was open and entered, which made the accusation of “trespassing on private property against the owner's will” a wrong description of what he had done, which meant that the court should have cleared Sargsyan.

But Andranik Sargsyan had earlier ended up spending three months in jail for a crime he did not commit. The lawyer has promised to present this case to the European Court of Justice.