Advocates that accused the Armenian candidate to the ECHR for plagiarism back down

1lur.am website has inquired about the statement published by various news outlets on the issue of selection of ECHR judge from several lawyers that undersigned the mentioned call or haven’t yet done so.

Advocate Armen Feroyan, who undersigned the statement, said:

“I have not quite researched with regards to alleged plagiarism, my colleague Tigran Yegoryan did that. I am aware there is such a claim, but I have not researched that personally”. Answering to the question whether to his best knowledge there is any other statement aside from the one disseminated by “Europe in Law Union” NGO’s chairwoman Lusine Hakobyan, Feroyan said: “Basically I am not aware of any other material”.

Advocate David Gyurjyan, who also joined the statement, said:

“Yes, I am aware of the statement and the text, at least that piece in particular”. To the follow-up question whether he is aware of any other material aside from the said statement, he replied: “Positive, I am aware of other materials as well, but would decline to speak about that”.

Advocate David Karapetyan, who undersigned the statement, said:

“I am not aware of any plagiarism, to be honest. I have known Armen Harutyunyan, he used to be my professor in my student years, his abilities and knowledge had been visible to me, and that’s why I voted for that [decision] to be reviewed”.

Advocate Irina Hakobyan, who has joined the call, said:

“Yes, I have undersigned to the statement disseminated by Tigran Yegoryan and Lusine Hakobyan, and have done so as a private advocate. If the majority of our advocates haven’t joined that statement, that cannot be disseminated on behalf of the entire community of advocates, but must be presented as one disseminated by a group of advocates”.

Advocate Karen Hakobyan, who also joined the statement, said:

“I am aware of the text that had been sent to us. I have familiarized myself with the text, and I know there are unfair elections and that is why I joined it, yet I am not familiar with the details. I have no connection whatsoever to the allegations of plagiarism. The general idea is that the elections must be held fair, because that is an important issue. Has that statement been disseminated on behalf of the entire community? I am not aware of that, I don’t know. We have the text, the main focus has been on the elections, that it must be held fair in principle. I don’t know what they [shifted] the focus on”.

Advocate Garik Galikyan said the following:

“I have read the text of that statement. I am not getting into the issue of authenticity of the text, yet I can tell you one thing for sure. A group of advocates cannot speak on behalf of the entire community of advocates and represent their views. All the more so, if the statement also includes one-sided elements of plagiarism allegations. We are not able to check within this short period of time whether the facts mentioned in the statement had taken place or not. Statements like this should have been first presented for the discussions within the community of advocates, with enclosed justifications, and only then to enable the dissemination of a more grounded statement. One may be left with the impression, that such a statement was needed to be done in a certain rush. We have a standing experience that a material is at first posted in our advocates’ group, we discuss it then. This material was posted just yesterday and I could feel the rush obviously”.

Advocate Ani Movsisyan said in response to our question:

“You cannot speak on behalf of an entire community, without having secured the majority view behind you. Because it turns that I can represent the views of the entire community with just twenty advocates. That statement has caused certain bewilderment in our group of advocates, too. It may well be that the arguments of those disseminating this statement are valid, but let them speak on their own. We, the advocates, being free and independent people, will then decide to join or not”.

Advocate Rima Karapetyan mentioned:

“The Council of the Chamber of Advocates, the Chairperson or the majority of the advocates can only speak on behalf of the community of advocates. I respect those advocates that joined the statement, but you shouldn’t have represented it on behalf of the community of advocates”.