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A delegation led by Armenia’s Prosecutor General, Plenipotentiary Representative of the Armenian Government to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Gevorg Kostanyan went on a working visit to Strasbourg, the press office of the Office of Armenian Prosecutor General reported.

ECHR will be delivering a Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Perinçek v. Switzerland (application no. 27510/08) at a public hearing on Thursday 15 October 2015 at 11.45 a.m. in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg. The Republic of Armenia is involved in the case as a third party.

“The involvement of the Republic of Armenia in the case is due to the fact that the ECHR said that it does not have to examine the legal wording of the Armenian Genocide and therefore it will not consider substantive issues related to the crimes committed against Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, but it nevertheless addressed the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide in its judgment and made evaluations unacceptable to the Armenian side.  The judgment also contains a number of contradictory opinions.

Under such conditions the Perincek case went beyond the scope of Swiss criminal law and the decision on conventional conformity and concerned the Armenian people. For that reason Armenia became involved as a third party in the case so as to be able to inform ECHR about the position of the Armenian people on the case and some wordings of the court. 

As a third party, the Republic of Armenia expects ECHR to deliver a fair judgment that will not have wordings that could call into question the fact of the Armenian Genocide in a historical, legal or any other context.

The aim is to prevent a judgment of ECHR from becoming a tool in the hands of those who deny the Armenian Genocide or who will attempt to use the judgment for their amoral purposes,” Armenian  Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.

A Grand Chamber hearing of the case of  Perincek v. Switzerland was held in ECHR on 28 January 2015. Armenia was represented by Representative of the Armenian Government to ECHR, Armenia’s Prosecutor General Gevorg Kostanyan,  the founder of Doughty Street Chambers, lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, and activist, lawyer Amal Clooney.