Background
The case consolidates two separate applications arising from protest-related arrests in Armenia. The first applicant, Armen Abroyan, was arrested on 23 June 2014 during a demonstration outside the Public Services Regulatory Commission against a decision to raise electricity prices. Police alleged he had disobeyed a lawful order to clear a blocked street, an administrative offence under Article 182 of Armenia’s Code of Administrative Offences. Armenian courts ultimately dismissed the fine sought against him, finding no evidence that any police officer had actually issued the order he was accused of disobeying — a fact confirmed by video footage submitted by the police themselves.
The second and third applicants, Zaruhi Hovhannisyan and Olya Azatyan, were arrested on 2 December 2013 while attempting to attach a political poster to an overpass railing in central Yerevan. The poster, reading “Serzh’s DADDY has arrived,” was a pointed commentary on then-President Serzh Sargsyan’s foreign policy in the context of a Russian state visit. Police interrupted the four-person demonstration, arrested the applicants, and brought them to a police station. Armenian courts upheld the arrests, finding the applicants had violated public order and exercised their right to expression “unlawfully.”
Both sets of applicants exhausted domestic remedies — the Court of Cassation’s final decisions were served in November 2017 and May 2018 respectively — before lodging applications in Strasbourg. The Court joined the two cases given their similar subject matter and examined them together.
The Court’s Holding
The Court found a violation of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty) in respect of all three applicants. As to Abroyan, his arrest rested on suspicion of an offence that domestic courts had established never occurred: no order had been given, so no order could have been disobeyed. His arrest therefore lacked any reasonable suspicion and was arbitrary. As to Hovhannisyan and Azatyan, even accepting that a police order existed, the mere commission of an administrative offence could not by itself justify deprivation of liberty under Armenian law; Article 259 of the Code required that arrest be necessary. Neither the domestic authorities nor the Government ever meaningfully assessed that necessity — including whether identity could have been established or a record drawn up on the spot — leaving the arrests without adequate legal grounds.
The Court further found a violation of Article 11 (freedom of assembly) in respect of Abroyan. Because his arrest was arbitrary and thus not “prescribed by law,” the resulting interference with his right to participate in the demonstration could not satisfy Article 11 § 2, nor was any good reason shown for it. For Hovhannisyan and Azatyan, the Court treated the small-scale, short-lived poster action as predominantly an exercise of expression rather than assembly, and found a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression). Their arrest was unlawful under Article 5, which rendered it equally unlawful under Article 10; additionally, given the entirely non-violent nature of their conduct, the domestic authorities’ stated reasons were insufficient to justify the interference.
The Court declined to rule separately on Abroyan’s Article 6 § 1 complaint, finding that the main legal questions in his application had been addressed. It awarded each applicant €3,000 in non-pecuniary damages and a joint €2,000 for costs and expenses, to be paid to their principal lawyer.
Key Takeaways
- An arrest for disobeying a police order is arbitrary under Article 5 § 1 where domestic courts have established that no such order was ever given — a reasonable suspicion must rest on actual facts, not unfounded allegations.
- Under Article 5 § 1, the mere commission of an administrative offence is insufficient to justify deprivation of liberty when national law also requires that the arrest be necessary; authorities must meaningfully assess that necessity and document the grounds.
- A small, short-duration political demonstration by a handful of people falls primarily within the scope of Article 10 (expression) rather than Article 11 (assembly); an unlawful arrest in that context constitutes an unlawful interference with free expression.
- Where an interference with assembly or expression rights stems from an arrest already found to be arbitrary or unlawful, the Convention violation under Articles 10 or 11 follows as a direct consequence without need for separate proportionality analysis.
Why It Matters
This judgment reinforces that procedural safeguards around administrative arrest are not merely bureaucratic formalities: authorities must actually verify the factual basis for suspicion and genuinely assess the necessity of detention before depriving someone of liberty at a protest. The ruling is a clear signal to Council of Europe member states that rubber-stamping arrests at demonstrations — whether by fabricating or failing to document grounds — will be scrutinised against Article 5’s substantive requirements, not just its formal ones.
The case also illustrates the Court’s approach to overlapping Convention rights in protest contexts: where an event is small-scale and expressive in character, Article 10 may be the primary lens, while Article 11 governs larger collective assemblies. Practitioners advising clients on protest-related detentions should note that an unlawful arrest carries through to invalidate any downstream restriction on speech or assembly rights, potentially streamlining the Convention analysis in future cases involving similar facts.