After the entry into force of the new Civil Procedure Code, the publication of judicial acts takes place not in a court session, as it was done before, but through publication on the official website of the judiciary (www.datalex.am).
However, part 2 of Article 179 of the Code stipulates that if the copy of the decision is not handed over in person, the courts are also obliged to send it to the participants in the case no later than the next day after its publication. In practice, however, the obligation to send the paper version of the judicial act to the participants in the case within the established time limits is not always properly fulfilled:
The circumstance of sending the decision late is often justified by the heavy workload of the court composition, and in some cases, by this or that technical problem. Given the mass nature of the phenomenon, we can conclude, however, that such behavior is often nothing more than a result of the careless work of the court composition and the lack of a sense of responsibility. The fact is that the publication of the decision on the official website of the judiciary, datalex.am, is often seen as an opportunity for the parties to familiarize themselves with the content of the decision, thus sending the decision in paper form to the participants in the case in a timely manner is not always prioritized. As a result, a situation arises where a party to the proceedings, who wishes to appeal the decision and is limited by the procedural deadlines for filing an appeal, receives the court's decision in paper form at best by the end of the appeal period. The latter, regardless of their will, often misses the procedural deadline for filing an appeal against the decision. In such cases, the person bringing the appeal, based on the regulation established by point 2 of part 1 of Article 372 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia, submits a motion to the appellate court to restore the procedural deadline along with the judicial file confirming the fact of receiving the decision late:
Judicial practice shows that motions are mostly granted by the appellate court, a circumstance that, in fact, does not hinder the person's exercise of the right to appeal. However, there are cases when the court, referring to the fact that the decision was published on the official website of the judiciary in a timely manner and concluding that the appellant had, in fact, the opportunity to familiarize themselves with its content earlier, rejects the motion to restore the procedural deadline for filing an appeal against the decision. In such circumstances, there arises a need to clarify whether the publication of the judicial act on the official website of the judiciary can be considered as proper fulfillment of the court's obligation to hand over the judicial act to the participant in the case, and whether appeals submitted after the expiration of the legally established appeal period can, in such circumstances, be subject to examination. The Supreme Court of the Republic of Armenia, analyzing the norms mentioned in part 7 of Article 17 and Article 179 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia, has noted that the current Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia has adopted the approach according to which, in the absence of the method of personal delivery, sending a copy of the decision is considered as an equivalent, substitutive measure:
Under the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia, the publication of the decision is carried out through the official website of the judiciary, that is, instead of convening a court session and publishing the final part of the judicial act in the session, the judicial act is published on the official website of the judiciary. This new procedure for publication is aimed at making the judicial act accessible to a wider audience, as well as alleviating the burden on the courts. The legislator has established a new procedure in the current Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia, but has not exempted the courts from the obligation to hand over or send a copy of the judicial act to the person in person. The legislator did not consider the publication of the judicial act on the official website of the judiciary as proper fulfillment of the court's obligation to make the judicial act accessible, since otherwise, it becomes meaningless to maintain the methods of handing over or sending the judicial act alongside this publication procedure. That is, the new procedure for publication arising from the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia does not exclude and does not terminate the court's obligation to send a copy of the decision to the participants in the case no later than the next day after its publication, if it has not been handed over to them in person beforehand.
Considering the legal questions in light of the right to a fair trial enshrined in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Armenia has stated that although Article 6 of the Convention does not explicitly define how the act of the court should be handed over to the person, it is nevertheless clear that the judicial act must be handed over in such a way as to allow for the actual clarification of both the fact of the judicial act being transmitted and the exact date of its delivery. While not specifying a specific method of delivery of the judicial act, the Convention and its application require that the exercise of a person's right to appeal be closely linked to the real opportunity to familiarize themselves with the act of the court. That is, procedural norms should be established in such a way as to provide the participants in the case with a real opportunity to access the content of the judicial act, and their right to bring an appeal should not be unjustifiably restricted:
The Supreme Court of the Republic of Armenia has also noted that in cases where the failure to exercise the right to appeal is due to the inaction of the lower court, when discussing the issue of restoring the missed procedural deadline, the appellate court should be guided by the principles of the person's access to the court for the protection of their rights and its availability (see, Albert Hovhannisyan vs. Lorik Vardanyan, case No. ESHD/0245/02/14, decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Armenia dated 16.03.2016
).
The Supreme Court of the Republic of Armenia, valuing the publication of the judicial act on the official website of the judiciary as a means of making the judicial act accessible to the participants in the case, emphasized that in terms of creating full preconditions for the exercise of the right to appeal, the court is also obliged to hand over or send the judicial act to the participants in the case in person, under which circumstances conclusions about the proper fulfillment of the obligation to make the judicial act accessible to the participants in the case can only be drawn if the court has properly fulfilled the following obligations:
a) on the declared day, the judicial act has been published on the official website of the judiciary,
b) the copy of the judicial act has been sent to the participants in the case no later than the next day after its publication, if it has not been handed over to them in person beforehand (see, “Yeghtsi Luys-BH” LLC vs. “Armine” LLC, case No. KD/0412/02/18, decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Armenia dated 30.02.2019):
In the bankruptcy case of “ASHTARAK-KAT” LLC, the manager Khachik Nazaryan vs. “Vatimava” LLC, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Armenia, in its decision dated 23.04.2020, added that in cases where the judicial act is delayed in reaching the appellant for reasons beyond their control, the missed deadline for filing an appeal must be restored by law (ex jure) by the appellate court.