Is Kocharyan’s Arrest Politically Motivated?
The overarching conceptual setup indicates a tacit endeavor to plant seeds of doubt upon the legitimacy of the government’s case against Kocharyan.[1] By reducing the legal basis of the case to one of political persecution, the merits of the case, in of itself, become moot and negated. Without having had any access to the evidence being developed, the facts of the case, the list of witnesses, and other pertinent and relevant content, assumptions are being proliferated as if the outcome of the case, due to its presumed political nature, is a foregone conclusion. This immature attempt at diagnosing a self-fulfilling prophecy is indicative of the rationale of the apologists of the Kocharyan Administration. By preempting, they are attempting to cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the outcome of the case, under the assumption that the evidence is going to be insurmountable and detrimental for Kocharyan. As such, by throwing a blanket critique over the case as being politically motivated, the nuances, facts, evidence, and the collective basis that could demonstrate Kocharyan’s guilt can be waived off as immaterial.
There is a fundamental difference between the notion of political will and the notion of violating the separation of powers doctrine between the governmental branches. Namely, in the last ten years, the political will of the government was nonexistent when it came to legally addressing the death and mayhem of the March 1, 2008 events.
The apologists are concocting the following argument: the decision has been made, Kocharyan is going to be persecuted for political reasons, as such, there can be no legal legitimacy to his conviction. Thus, any evidence demonstrating Kocharyan’s guilt will be framed within the context of the conspiratorial – it is all a setup by the Pashinyan Government!
The problem with these forms of arguments are not simply limited to the lack of quality that comprises much of the political commentary concerning Armenia’s domestic developments, but also the prevailing assumption that the way the current administration operates is no different than the way previous administrations operated. That is, extra-legally with very little regard or respect to the independence of the judicial branch. Interestingly, while this modality of thinking is justified and further documented within the previous administrations, there remains no basis to make such assumptions with respect to the current administration. The contention being made here is that unless evidence is divulged that displays the Pashinyan Administration’s interference into the decision-making of the courts, commentators must refrain from making nonsensical assumptions that rely on the conspiratorial logic of the past. Furthermore, we must note a very important distinction that escapes the attention of most pundits: there is a fundamental difference between the notion of political will and the notion of violating the separation of powers doctrine between the governmental branches. Namely, in the last ten years, the political will of the government was nonexistent when it came to legally addressing the death and mayhem of the March 1, 2008 events. That the Pashinyan government has displayed a robust political will to unravel the March 1 events is beyond question: this was actually an important part of Pashinyan’s platform. This political will, however, in no way presupposes that the executive branch will usurp the constitutional separation-of-powers and enforce such a will upon the judicial branch to ascertain a specified outcome. To conflate these two notions and collapse them into a singular and oversimplified assessment of “Pashinyan going after Kocharyan” reeks of analytical incompetence.
We do not know what the nature of the evidence is against Kocharyan, what the strength of the government’s case is against Kocharyan, and if this, indeed, is politically motivated, then the government, in essence, has no case. So why attack the institutional integrity of Armenia’s legal system?
As an extension of the executive’s responsibility, Pashinyan instructed the Special Investigative Services (SIS), the governmental body that investigates public officials, to undertake an investigation into the March 1 events. This has been the extent of the Prime Minister’s involvement, which, legally, falls within the purview of the chief executive. The determination of the courts, however, to rule in favor of the SIS and thus approve a warrant for Kocharyan’s arrest remains inherently disconnected with the executives initial request of an investigation. There remains absolutely no basis to presume that the court decision was influenced or coerced by the Prime Minister’s office: such an assumption presupposes extra-legal and illegal activity by the Prime Minister himself.
Forthwith, unless this is substantiated (and if so, then Pashinyan should be held accountable before the law), pundits must refrain from presuming that because Pashinyan had directed the SIS, then he must, by the prevailing logic that defined the operational methods of the previous governments, also direct the courts to rule in accordance to his will, as opposed to the law. The fact that the courts, for example, scrutinized, in nearly a 24-hour marathon, the SIS’ request to arrest and hold Kocharyan in two month pre-trial detention clearly negates such contentions. If, as Kocharyan’s apologists contend, the Prime Minister’s office has violated the independence of the judiciary and directed orders upon the court’s decision-making, then why would the court require such an extraordinarily long time to consider the SIS’ request?
Contextually, this is actually a rarity in Armenia’s judicial-legal realm: we have not been privy to such an instance where a court undertook such an extensive period to consider the evidence and the request of a governmental body to formulate its decision. This procedural development, in of itself, is both unusual and a positive development for the independence of the judiciary.
These arguments, of course, purposefully and willfully ignore the very events over which the case against Kocharyan has been initiated. The fact remains that ten Armenian citizens were killed. The fact remains that a “state of emergency” was declared, and under this purview, the army was instructed to intervene into domestic affairs. The fact remains that orders were given where force was used against Armenian citizens; brute force that violated the constitutional rights of citizens. These facts, without any needless qualification, require and demand accountability. The Armenian people have and are still demanding answers. Kocharyan’s apologists, however, are not simply attacking the legal process before it has even began, but further, they are displaying their inherent autocratic arrogance by thumbing their noses at those who have the audacity to demand accountability. Who are the Armenian people to demand answers? This arrogance, of course, is not so much arrogance, but rather, concealed fear: they know that in the court of public opinion, Kocharyan has already been found guilty by the Armenian people. However, in the court of law, his innocence is presumed, but Kocharyan’s apologists are indifferent to this presumption of innocence, for they carry the undeniable fear that when held accountable to the law, the insurmountable evidence will relinquish such a presumption. All this being said, however, we still remain with one obvious consideration: we do not know what the nature of the evidence is against Kocharyan, what the strength of the government’s case is against Kocharyan, and if this, indeed, is politically motivated, then the government, in essence, has no case. So why attack the institutional integrity of Armenia’s legal system? Why make assumptions when no evidence or information has yet been publicized? Why presume this way or that way when no cogent basis exist to make such presumptions? Simply put, why deny and attack, when you don’t know what you are denying and who you are attacking? Without being privy to the merits of the case, Kocharyan’s apologists are attacking the case for its merits. This behavior, by its very predisposition, subscribes to autocratic arrogance.
The Legal Basis for Kocharyan’s Incarceration
The second scope of analysis put forth by commentators revolves around the legal statute under which Kocharyan is being charged and the extent to which statutory interpretation remains consistent with the merits of the case. While interpretive assessments are quite important and necessary in the realm of legal analysis, the problem here, however, is that misinterpretation has given way to accusations of politicization. Much of the punditry discourse has displayed a degree of dismay on why the government is charging Kocharyan under Article 300.1, Usurping State Power. Many commentators, of course, have displayed such dismay as an extension of honest discourse: due to their interpretation of the statute, they do not understand why the government would select such a legal course. Other commentators, falling within the apologist camp, have attacked the application of the statute to the charges as being legally incommensurate and inapplicable. The contention put forth here is that we can and we should have a genuine and honest discourse on the legal interpretation of the statute (and we will); but to immediately take the legal discourse and reduce it to conspiratorial and politicized conclusions is intellectually dishonest. For interpretive consistency, let us engage Article 300.1:
Various groups of actors, through the years, have gone their own separate ways, but what links them all together are the skeletons of March 1, and so the question is no longer about loyalty to Kocharyan, but rather, the fear that the role each of them played, whether instituting the violence, covering up for it, or justifying it, has come back to haunt them.
Kocharyan’s Apologists and the Skeletons of March 1
When the discourse somehow delves into the ignorant or the dishonest, by virtue of being what they are, the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) cannot help itself by partaking in the absurd. Lamenting the arrest of Kocharyan as a form of political vendetta that lacks any legal foundations, they further articulate their penchant for hypocrisy by declaring, “We consider the existing situation to be a threat to Armenia’s democratic development and a blow to efforts to build a full-fledged rule-of-law state.”[3] Most cannot refrain from laughing when the RPA speaks of democratic development or rule-of-law: the party of corruption and autocratic arrogance now has the audacity to be sanctimonious. This clearly is connected to Kocharyan’s desperate attempt at fear-mongering, as he attempted to tie-in a broad range of disconnected issues of Armenian society to his arrest, and the potential harm that this may bring to the country: his arrest is equivalent to placing a bomb under the fabric of the nation, of the security apparatus, and as a result, harming the nation and pleasing the Azerbaijanis.[4] Dovetailing the claims of the RPA, the autocrat and his apologists are desperately seeking to mobilize sympathizers and collaborators. But what do we mean by collaborators?
Purporting to be advocates of democratization and supporters of the Velvet Revolution, many of these same individuals were actually apologists for the very regime that consolidated Serzh Sargsyan’s transition to power. That they now supported Sargsyan’s overthrow does not change the fact that they, in the first place, secured and justified his transition to power.
The position of the United States, similarly, has been rather measured, or to choose the more correct term, generic. The State Department put forward a blanket statement encouraging the Armenian authorities to undertake a transparent, independent, and credible investigation that is consistent with internationally recognized standards.[8] Considering the U.S. government’s severe condemnation of the March 1 events,[9] and its suspension of aid to Armenia under the Millennial Challenge Account (MCA), there’s really no love lost between Washington and Kocharyan. The only underlying concern the U.S. appears to suggest, and again, this is merely an insinuation, is that the legal proceedings should be different than the way previous administrations have handled such important investigations. America’s concern, then, is purely of a procedural nature: the proper and consistent application of the law.
