issued by the Registrar of the Court
ECHR 008 (2025)
09.01.2025
Judgments and decisions of 9 January 2025
The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing five judgments1 and three
decisions2:
Three Chamber judgments are summarised below;
two Committee judgments, concerning issues which have already been examined by the Court, and
The judgments summarised below are available only in English.
Petrosyan v. Armenia (application no. 51448/15)
The applicant, Heghine Petrosyan, is an Armenian national who was born in 1972 and lives in
Hrazdan (Armenia).
The case concerns the death of Ms Petrosyan’s 19-year-old son while being held in custody for
evasion of military service. The official version was that he had committed suicide in his cell.
The applicant’s son, H. Movsisyan, had been drafted into the Armenian army in June 2011 and
assigned to a military unit in Nagorno-Karabakh. Shortly after he was found unfit and discharged for
mental-health reasons. He was subsequently prosecuted and convicted for evasion of military
service. On 28 November 2012 he was found hanging from the bars of his cell window with his
bedsheet.
Three investigations were carried out. One internal investigation by the Nagorno-Karabakh police
concluded that “no breaches [of rights] had been discovered on the part of the prison officers”,
while two sets of criminal proceedings, by the Nagorno-Karabakh and then authorities in Armenia,
were terminated on the grounds that there was no evidence that a crime had been committed.
Ms Petrosyan appealed the decisions in her son’s case to the national courts, without success.
Relying on Articles 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights and 13 (right to an
effective remedy) of the European Convention, Ms Petroysan complains, among other things, that
the authorities failed to provide a plausible explanation for the death of her son. She argues in
particular that they had failed to clarify how it had been possible for her son to commit suicide in the
presence of six other detainees without them or the guards noticing. At the same time, she also
argues that the authorities failed to take steps to protect her son’s life, despite having been aware of
his mental-health issues.
Violation of Article 2 (right to life and investigation)
Violation of Article 13
Just satisfaction:
1
Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, Chamber judgments are not final. During the three-month period following a Chamber
judgment’s delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a
panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and
deliver a final judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day. Under Article 28 of the
Convention, judgments delivered by a Committee are final.
Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.
Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution
2
Inadmissibility and strike-out decisions are final.
