Armenia violated the right to an impartial tribunal when two judges declined to withdraw from a civil appeal despite circumstances creating objectively justified doubts about their neutrality, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.
Anna Poghosyan’s husband had acted as counsel in a matter involving the judges and had lodged a complaint that led to disciplinary sanctions against them. When Poghosyan’s own civil dispute reached a three-judge panel of the Armenian Civil Court of Appeal, she sought the recusal of the two judges. Both remained on the case.
The Strasbourg court treated the question through the objective limb of judicial impartiality: whether the surrounding facts could give a reasonable observer legitimate cause for doubt, independent of proof of personal hostility. It found that Armenia had not provided sufficient safeguards to dispel the appearance created by the earlier complaint and sanctions.
The court held that Article 6 §1 had been violated and awarded Poghosyan €3,600 for non-pecuniary damage. The judgment does not itself retry the underlying civil dispute; implementation will be supervised after the ruling becomes final.
This is a Chamber judgment and remains open to a referral request for three months. A panel of the Grand Chamber must accept any such request before the case can be reheard. Until that process ends, the ruling is not final under Article 44 of the Convention.
The official judgment is available on HUDOC.
