The founders of “Marukyan & Partners” won a case in ECHR

The founders of “Marukyan and Partners” Mr. Marukyan and Mrs. Matinyan registered a new achievement winning a case in the European Court of Human Rights.

On 20 June 2023 the European Court on Human Rights released the judgement on Yengibaryan and Simonyan v. Armenia (Application 2186/12) stating that Armenia has violated article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (procedural and substantive) since manifestly inadequate investigation into the killing of the applicants’ husband and son by a police officer during a chase took place. Armenia also failed to show “beyond reasonable doubt” that use of force was no more than absolutely necessary.

According to the case materials on 14 June 2011, a police officer shot Mr Yengibaryan near Garegin Nzhdehi Square in Yerevan. Mr Yengibaryan was taken to hospital, where he died of his injuries. The police officers informed the investigation that they had been in pursuit of Mr Yengibaryan because they had been informed that he had attempted to gain entry to an apartment claiming to be an employee of the water supply company. They had therefore suspected him of being the perpetrator of the recent series of armed robberies. Mr Yengibaryan had shot at them during the chase, and one of the police officers had returned fire.

The court ruled: “…the investigation conducted at the national level was so manifestly inadequate and left so many obvious questions unanswered that it is not capable of establishing the true facts surrounding the killing and the Court is unable to rely on the conclusion reached at the end of that investigation. The Government, in their submissions before the Court, simply relied upon the findings of the domestic investigation. They did not provide any further information or materials clarifying the circumstances surrounding the organisation and conduct of the operation and the use of lethal force in this case. In these circumstances, the Government have failed to discharge the burden of proof incumbent on them to show beyond reasonable doubt that the killing of Mr Yengibaryan resulted from a use of force that was no more than absolutely necessary to meet one of the aims set out in Article 2 § 2. There has accordingly been a violation of the substantive limb of Article 2 of the Convention in the present case”.

Court awarded the applicants jointly EUR 39,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.