Case of Farmanyan and Others v. Armenia

A selection of key paragraphs can be found below the judgment.

214. In light of the above, the Court concludes that the operation in question was not planned and conducted in such a way as to minimise to the greatest extent possible the risk to life.

218.  The Court is mindful, however, that where tear gas is applied by firing a grenade by means of a launcher, this generates the risk of causing serious injury or death, if the grenade launcher is used improperly. Consequently, given the dangerous nature of such equipment, its case‑law on the use of potentially lethal force is applicable in such cases, which means that police operations – including the launching of tear-gas grenades – should not only be authorised but should also be sufficiently delimited by domestic law, under a system of adequate and effective safeguards against arbitrary action, abuse of force and avoidable accidents (ibid., §§ 42-43).

219. In the present case, the sheer number of people struck by tear-gas grenades during the quelling of the 1 March 2008 protests, namely six in total, three of whom – the subject of the present case – were fatally injured (see paragraph 128 above), suggests that those were not isolated incidents but a consequence of a more systemic problem.

226. In view of the above, the Court concludes that the lack of a clear, detailed and binding set of instructions on the use of tear-gas grenades, the lack of appropriate training and supervision and the above-mentioned issues related to the condition and deployment of the tear-gas grenades themselves contributed significantly to the improper use of those crowd-control weapons in breach of safety rules, which resulted in the unnecessary deaths of Armen Farmanyan, Tigran Khachatryan and Gor Kloyan.

228. … As regards the first two victims, it is undisputed that the Police Troops equipped with AK‑74 assault rifles started firing 5.45 mm tracer bullets over the heads of the protestors, two of which killed Hovhannes Hovhannisyan and Grigor Gevorgyan. It follows from a number of documents in the case file that the purpose of the tracer fire was to scare and disperse the protestors (see paragraphs 98, 159 and 165 above). The Government also admitted (see paragraph 28 above) that its purpose had been to exert psychological pressure on the protestors (contrast Giuliani and Gaggio, cited above, § 216, where force was used during a demonstration to prevent an imminent threat of death or serious injury stemming from a sudden and violent attack). All in all 1,405 units of 5.45 mm tracer bullets were fired during the quelling of the protests. The Court does not consider such indiscriminate and random use of highly lethal firearms, which created a very high statistical chance of causing death or serious injury, to be acceptable. Nor was it in conformity with the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (see paragraph 164 above). Moreover, the use of tracer bullets came prior to any attempts to disperse the crowd with the use of a water cannon. Preference was therefore clearly given to the use of powerful, potentially lethal weapons, which should have been a measure of last resort. The Court reiterates in this connection that the principle of “absolute necessity” for the purposes of the Convention requires that, where different means are available to achieve the same aim, the means which entail the least danger to the lives of others must be chosen (see Giuliani and Gaggio, cited above, § 214).

232. The foregoing considerations are sufficient to enable the Court to conclude that the lethal force used against the applicants’ relatives, with the exception of Zakar Hovhannisyan, was not “absolutely necessary” and their deaths resulted from a badly planned and executed operation involving the improper use of crowd-control weapons and the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of lethal force.

233. Accordingly, there has been a violation of the substantive limb of Article 2 of the Convention with respect to the applicants’ relatives, with the exception of Zakar Hovhannisyan.

258. As regards specifically the three deaths caused by the impact of Cheremukha-7 tear-gas grenades, there were only four officers of the Police Troops who had been equipped with such crowd-control weapons and clearly their identities must have been known to the authorities. However, it took the authorities more than one year and four months to identify those officers and bring a criminal case against them (see paragraph 85 above), a delay which may well have resulted in a loss of evidence. The Government failed to submit any documents whatsoever relating to that criminal case. It appears, however, that not only was it launched with such a significant delay, but it was also fundamentally inadequate. There is nothing to suggest that the officers in question were ever interviewed by the investigating authority or, if they were, that those interviews were conducted thoroughly and properly. Nor does it appear that the authorities tried to secure any other evidence, including the identification and questioning of any witnesses. While there is no explicit information before the Court as to what eventually happened to the charges against those officers, it appears from other material in the case file that they were not pursued as it was impossible to identify the officer or officers who had, in fact, fired the fatal shots because the tear-gas grenades could not be traced (see paragraphs 78 and 82 above). […] The main issue does not therefore lie in the fact that the tear‑gas grenades were untraceable, but in the fact that they had not been properly used (see paragraphs 220-226 above), causing physical injury and death as a result. Furthermore, in the unfortunate event of this happening, it is incumbent on the authorities to take prompt and adequate measures capable of establishing the circumstances of the incidents and leading to the identification of those responsible, especially in view of the inability to trace such weapons, which the authorities clearly failed to do in the present case.

265. The foregoing is sufficient for the Court to conclude that the authorities have failed to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of the deaths of the applicants’ relatives. It does not consider it necessary to address the other shortcomings in the investigation alleged by the applicants (see, mutatis mutandis, Alikaj and Others v. Italy, no. 47357/08, § 100, 29 March 2011).