Amal Clooney: ECHR lower court made judgmental and factual errors
Amal Clooney, one of the attorneys representing Armenia at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), a barrister at the Doughty Street Chambers answered the questions of Pastinfo news agency after the ECHR Grand Chamber completed the hearing in the case of Perinçek v. Switzerland (application no. 27510/08). Mrs Clooney, in your speech you accused ECHR’s lower court of making judicial errors, saying its assessment on genocide was not necessary. First of all we wanted to show in court that the lower court had made terrible mistakes in this case. You know that last year, when ECHR’s lower court was considering Perincek’s case, Armenia did not participate in the hearing. The court ruled that Armenian Genocide was unknown and cannot be proved. The five judges who ruled against Switzerland made countless judgmental and factual errors, misrepresenting Perincek’s allegations, misinterpreting Switzerland’s laws and court rulings and without using the facts they had at hand. As you know over 1.5 million Armenian were killed during the 1915 genocide. The court considered denial of the Jewish Holocaust a crime, but Armenian Genocide denial an infringement on free speech. To admit the first as genocide and deny the second is simply inadmissible. First of all, we ask the Grand Chamber to verify the mistakes of the lower court. For more details visit pastinfo.am
