On 14 December, Europe in Law Association and Council of Europe Office in Yerevan jointly held the presentation of the Armenian translation of ‘Taking a Case to the European Court of Human Rights’ by Philip Leach.
The co-editors of the Armenian version of the book, Ms Lousineh Hakobyan, President of Europe in Law Association and Mr Vahe Grigoryan, Justice of the RA Constitutional Court spoke about the book during the presentation.
In her remarks, Ms Lousineh Hakobyan extended her special gratitude to the people and organisations that invested efforts in having the book translated and published in Armenian.
‘I would like to extend my gratitude to several partners who are present here today. I would first like to thank Prof. Philip Leach. He is certainly the hero of the day. His book was first published in English in 2005, and we all know that since then he has taked great effort in regularly updating it. What was translated into Armenian is actually the 4th edition of the book. I remember very well that back in 2005 there were only 2 copies of Philip Leach’s books in Armenia and we would make copies of it to be able to use it, and it was not a book on our shelves but a book on our desks and it has remained such remaining a very important guide for practicing lawyers in Armenia. I also remember that in 2011 GIZ ran a programme ‘Winter Academy for Transformation Lawyers,’ and within this programme they budgeted small sums of money to buy resources for us that would contribute to our development. And I requested that they bought the 3rd edition of the book for me. They did order it for me, but I was so impatient that I couldn’t wait for the book to arrive. So I bought another copy. And when finally the GIZ copy arrived, I had two copies, so I gave one to another colleague.
In 2018 we were very happy to co-organise a discussion with EHRAC and Philip Leach for lawyers, and at that time Philip Leach gave this 4th edition, which is also for students, to ELA as a gift. Therefore, this version of the book is going to benefit not only practicing lawyers but also students.
So I am extremely happy that Europe in Law initiatied this project.
I would be remiss if I did not mention Ms Eva Tovmasyan who was with Friedrich Naumann Foundation at the time, and with who we discussed this project and who was extremely inspired that such a project could be implemented for the legal community in Armenia, including students.
I would also like to extend a big thank-you to the Publishing House ‘Antares,’ and Mr Armen Martirosyan, who applied to Oxford University Press for the copyright.
By all means, thank you Council of Europe, and especially Ms Lilit Daneghyan, Ms Tamara Barbakadze and Ms Martina Schmidt.
I would also like to mention Mr Armen Grigoryan from Friedrich Naumann Foundation, with who we continued work on this project and the former director of the Foundation, Peter-Andreas Bokhmann.
And last but not least, ELA’s diligent team – Lala Hovsepyan, Christina Petrosyan and Irina Papyan for all the efforts they put on the footnotes.
I would also like to express regret that I will never be able to read this book as a piece of fine literature again, since I will be always looking for more corrections in the text. And it is also going to be my request to you to look professionally at the possible shortcomings and help us to correct them as I believe the demand for this book is very big and we are going to publish more copies of it.’
Justice Vahe Grigoryan, the co-editor of the book started his presentation by recalling how the author stayed in a small hut in Cromer to concentrate his entire energy on systematising in this book the huge information that he possessed.
‘When Ms Hakobyan first spoke with me on the possibility of editing the Armenian translation of the book, I was inspired by a certain degree of professional egoism, so despite my workload, I agreed immediately, since it would be extremely unfair not to have any contribution to this project.
It would be unfair because Professor Leach’s contribution had been immence, including in the Armenian cases, and the consolidation of this or that institute of the Armenian legal system: just examine the applications submitted by the European Human Rights Advocacy Center to the European Court and their impact thereafter. At the time Professor Leach was the director of EHRAC, and I am talking about this as a witness. But even if I had not been a witness, from the viewpoint of a lawyer taking cases to the European Court of Human Rights, one could read through some of the judgments and see his contribution in this or that position or formula of the Court.
I believe that this book differs from similar books of the same caliber by two of its features:
- It contains an incredible amount of information for practicing lawyers, civil society actors on proceedings before the EctHR, including evidence. There are without any doubt many valuable works that very interestingly describe these notions. However, in the light of very detailed research by Prof. Leach, you will find information on such aspects of the proceedings, which are limited, not classified but limited. Such examples are numerous, and include, for example, the procedure of recusal of judges, etc. Also in view of his immence research on fact-finding missions by ECtHR, there is valuable information on evidence in this area as well.
- Second, an important feature of this work is its regular and comprehensive updates through several publications. In other words, the book keeps abreast with the developments of the Court’s practice.
It would be unfair not to translate Prof. Leach’s book into Armenian, and the reason for this is his contribution to the issues related to Armenia. The democratic changes in 2018 were also possible by virtue of slow but stable recording of human rights violations by the Court and Prof. Leach has an invaluable contribution to this.
And the last important factor, translation of similar works into Armenian develops both legal language and legal thinking. And although I was well aware of how important translations are for a lawyer, while doing this work and thinking that I was developing legal Armenian, I was in fact developing myself. Just imagine what a fantastic ability to put a 60-page judgment into just two sentences. I am happy to have contributed to this book, which prompts me that such initiatives must be more frequent in our community.
And finally, as a judge, I dream of an Armenia in which we will no longer resort to the ECtHR as the primary institution for developing the Armenian legal system but audaciously take the burden of developing our legal system upon ourselves,’ concluded Justice Grigoryan.