Ghukasyan's Defense Team Protests Restrictions on Prison Entry

Today at 12:00 PM, my unrestricted access to the "Yerevan Kentron" Penitentiary finally materialized, allowing me to visit my client Vardan Ghukasyan and discuss issues related to his right to defense with fellow attorneys Zarouhi Postanjyan and Aramais Hayrapetyan. This visit was secured without me sending any prior documentation or taking any action, which was unlawfully demanded yesterday by the employees of the "Yerevan Kentron" Penitentiary.

This was reported by Ghukasyan's defense team, led by the Mayor of Gyumri, Vardan Ghukasyan.

Moreover, yesterday the Ministry of Justice's penal service issued a statement mechanically citing legal norms included in a template, claiming that there was no information regarding my defense role in the penitentiary. Additionally, it was allegedly communicated by the penitentiary staff that I needed to wait, and I left without waiting. Most importantly, it was eventually clarified that I am involved as a defense attorney in the criminal proceedings.

First, it is absolutely untrue that I was told to wait and that I left. I was at the Passport Office of the NSS from 10:00 AM until around 12:00 PM, which is confirmed by my colleagues who were with me there, the NSS recording devices, and urgent communications sent from there. During this time, not a single penitentiary employee, including officers from the Human Rights Defender’s office, the Ministry of Justice, or police officers, informed me that they were conducting checks and needed more than two hours to resolve this 'complex' issue. On the contrary, everyone unanimously stated that there was a lack of information regarding my involvement as a defense attorney, which was officially denied.

Second, the staff of the "Yerevan Kentron" Penitentiary did not even want to come down to the reception to read the documents I had available, stating verbatim over the phone that "we have seen many such documents, we know their content, but you are not involved in the main case as a defense attorney".

Third, there cannot be such a distinction as 'main' or 'additional' cases; any lawyer, by virtue of their status, has the right to enter any penitentiary. A lawyer may be involved in one case or several; this cannot be a criterion for determining whether the lawyer should be allowed to enter the penitentiary or not.

Furthermore, contrary to the mechanically cited norms and their blatantly erroneous interpretations, I would like to note that all possible international standards, including the fundamental (Havana) principles on the role of lawyers, the European Convention on the Protection of Lawyers' Professional Activity, its interpretations, and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, guarantee the UNRESTRICTED meeting of a lawyer with their client, even without having any procedural status.

It should be noted for the Ministry of Justice's penal service that the unacceptability of the obstacles being created for ensuring lawyers' accessibility in Armenia has been documented in the 5th periodic report adopted by the UN Committee against Torture regarding Armenia on April 29, 2025, in which a delegation from the Ministry of Justice also participated on April 15.

Once again, it should be recorded that the persistent issues raised regarding lawyers' access to closed institutions are artificially created, and everyone systematically avoids the possibility of resolving it.

I am not even mentioning the censorship that documents transferred to the client undergo, how the possibility for the lawyer to enter the penitentiary with a computer becomes problematic each time, and so on.

A special procedure will be initiated to report these detrimental practices and their continuity to the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) as well as the UN Committee against Torture (CAT).