Project Methodology

Project activities were carried out in four stages:

I. LEGAL DOCUMENT ANALYSIS

At this stage of the project, the following documents have been studied and analyzed:

Domestic legislative acts as concerns RA international obligations; ECtHR judgements where the Court recognized violations of applicants’ right to freedom from torture and an effective investigation of their cases; Reports by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) (from various years) where the Committee touched upon issues concerning the freedom from torture issue; Annual communications and reports by the RA Human Rights Defender.

II. DATA COLLECTION

Information was collected from all available open sources on all cases of torture against citizens in the MP Departments.

Since 2012, PD has been providing legal assistance to legal successors of soldiers killed in non-combat situations. The organization’s expert Ruben Martirosyan has been involved in a number of criminal cases as a representative of victims’ successors. PD became aware of some of the cases as a result of criminal investigations.

The rest of the materials were provided to PD staff by Mushegh Shushanyan, a project expert and a lawyer, who has been involved as a representative of victims’ successors, and has also been involved in representing and defending citizens in court proceedings on human rights violations as part of other AF criminal cases.

III. INTERVIEWS

After organizing and reviewing materials obtained, project staff attempted to contact several citizens or their representatives in cases involving torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. This was so as to obtain more detailed information from the initial source. To this end, a questionnaire was developed for interviewing persons who had been brought as a witness or a suspect in criminal proceedings and subjected to torture and degrading treatment. Project staff made extensive efforts to identify and meet these individuals. Given the fact that victims of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment generally avoid speaking out about what happened to them or just try to forget it, only one person has given consent for an interview. That person took part in an interview explaining what happened to him. Project staff was also able to obtain desired information due to facts provided by lawyers who had given legal assistance or had been soldiers’ authorized rep-

IV. BASED ON THE STUDY’S RESULTS, A SET OF RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SECTOR REFORM HAS BEEN PUT TOGETHER

Having studied and analyzed possible causes of the situation described above, including legislative regulatory gaps and problems with law enforcement, project staff has developed recommendations for putting in place safeguards to ensure the right to freedom from torture for military servicemen taken to the MP. At the end of the project, these recommendations will be provided to sector officials so as to initiate reforms and prevent torture and inhuman or degrading treatment of persons involved in criminal proceedings by the RA MP.