Catholicos trial: judge who stepped aside faces disciplinary action
- Published
- Place
- Vagharshapat (Etchmiadzin) and Yerevan, Armenia
- Event date
- Upcoming event —
Summary
Armenia’s Justice Ministry has asked the Supreme Judicial Council to discipline Hakob Manukyan, the judge who withdrew on 7 August from the trial of Catholicos Karekin II and six bishops. The Armavir province judge had said his impartiality could be questioned because he obtained his lawyer’s licence from Ara Zohrabyan, now the Catholicos’s defence counsel and a former head of the Chamber of Advocates. The ministry opened proceedings on 21 August; Justice Minister Srbuhi Galyan referred the case to the council on 19 October, and the council will examine it on 16 November. The head of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the bishops are charged with obstructing a court ruling issued in favour of former bishop Gevorg Saroyan. The hearing set for 30 October was postponed to 6 November.
Analysis
The council declined to say whether the ministry is seeking the judge’s dismissal; two Yerevan dailies link the move to his refusal to try the Catholicos. The case has already passed through three judges without any hearing on the merits. Above all, on 22 October the same court threw out Arman Saroyan’s civil suit, ruling that appointing and dismissing diocesan primates is the Catholicos’s sole prerogative. The defence says this undermines charges built on interim measures that have since been lifted.
Possible consequences
The case is part of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s campaign against Karekin II, whose departure he demands and whose replacement is written into the government’s 2026–2031 programme. Any sanction against the judge would be read by the Church’s supporters as a warning to the judiciary. The trial is due to resume on 6 November before Judge Serzh Rushanyan; the defence plans to seek the dropping of charges if the civil ruling is upheld on appeal.
What remains uncertain
The sanction sought by the ministry has not been made public, and the link with the recusal, reported by the Armenian press, has not been officially confirmed. The 22 October civil ruling does not by itself end the criminal case and can still be appealed.
