{"id":1927,"date":"2017-12-12T00:25:39","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T00:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rcstaging.co.uk\/ehrac\/?p=1927"},"modified":"2021-06-03T01:37:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T00:37:46","slug":"azerbaijan-armenia-responsibility-to-address-violations-nagorno-karabakh","status":"publish","type":[30],"link":"http:\/\/ehrac.org.uk\/en_gb\/azerbaijan-armenia-responsibility-to-address-violations-nagorno-karabakh\/","title":{"rendered":"25 years on: Azerbaijani and Armenian Governments have primary responsibility to address human rights violations from Nagorno-Karabakh conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t
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On 12 December 2017, the\u00a0European Court of Human Rights issued its long-awaited follow-up decisions to the ground-breaking 2015 Grand Chamber judgments on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict<\/a>, calling for a property restitution mechanism and emphasising the two states\u2019 responsibility to find a political resolution to the conflict.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Court is\u2026dealing with a continuing situation which has its roots in the unresolved conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories and still affects a large number of individuals. More than one thousand individual applications lodged by persons who were displaced during the conflict are pending before the Court, slightly more than half of them being directed against Armenia and the remainder against Azerbaijan. The applicants in these cases represent just a small portion of the persons, estimated to exceed one million, who had to flee during the conflict and have since been unable to return to their properties and homes or to receive any compensation for the loss of their enjoyment.\u201d<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In June 2015, the Court\u00a0found the Azerbaijani Government responsible for breaching the property rights<\/a>\u00a0of the Sargsyan family, whose home was destroyed by heavy bombing in a region near the conflict zone. A parallel case\u00a0(Chiragov v Armenia)<\/a>\u00a0also found Armenia responsible for violating the property rights of a group of Azerbaijani refugees who were displaced during the conflict. The new decisions address the damages to be awarded to the applicants. EHRAC and Legal Guide (an NGO in Yerevan) represent the Sargsyan family.<\/p>\n

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What did the Court find in its 2015 judgment?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
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The Sargsyan home in Gulistan<\/p><\/div>\n

Minas Sargsyan had lived in Gulistan village (in the Shahumyan region of Azerbaijan, near Nagorno-Karabakh) throughout his life. In 1992, he and his family fled to Armenia as refugees, following heavy bombing by Azerbaijani forces in the region. He\u00a0applied to the European Court in 2006 to seek redress<\/a>\u00a0for his family\u2019s enforced displacement. In the 2015 judgment, the\u00a0European Court found<\/a>\u00a0that the family\u2019s inability to return to the village or to be compensated for the loss of their land and property breached both their property rights (Article 1 of Protocol 1\u00a0of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)), and their right to respect for their family life and home (Article 8). The family\u2019s inability to visit their relatives\u2019 graves in the village amounted to a further breach of Article 8. The Court also found that the State had failed to create a mechanism which would allow the Sargsyan family to have their property rights restored and that there were no effective remedies available (Article 13). Mr Sargsyan passed away in 2009, and his wife, Lena Sargsyan, also died in 2014. Their case was pursued by their children, Tsovinar and Vladimir Sargsyan.<\/p>\n

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What now?<\/em><\/h3>\n
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In its 2017 decision on damages, the Court awarded \u20ac5,000 to Mr and Ms. Sargsyan in compensation for:<\/p>\n