Judge Recuses Himself from Catholicos Case: Admission of Shameful Lawsuit?

In a moment that crystallizes the political nature of the prosecution against Catholicos Garegin II, the presiding judge abruptly recused himself from the case, citing a claimed conflict of interest: he had obtained his lawyer’s license from the head of the National Bar Association, who currently represents the Catholicos. The logical connection is so tenuous that both Hovik and Asbed struggle to identify what the actual conflict is. A lawyer obtaining his credentials from a bar official decades ago, only for that official to later represent a defendant, does not constitute a recognizable conflict of interest under any standard judicial doctrine.

Asbed’s interpretation is more plausible: the judge recognized the case as shameful and decided he did not want his name permanently associated with it in Armenian history. Dragging the leader of the Armenian Apostolic Church through court on baseless criminal charges for exercising his ecclesiastical authority is a historic embarrassment. The judge, perhaps fearing reputational damage or possessing some residual judicial integrity, opted out rather than preside over what he likely knows is a politically motivated prosecution with no legal foundation.

This recusal highlights a bitter irony: in a judicial system packed with Pashinyan loyalists, even a compliant judge found this case too toxic to handle. Hovik notes the contrast with a Constitutional Court judge who refused to recuse herself despite being an active member of a plaintiff party in a case before her-a far more clear-cut conflict. Yet that judge remained, while the Catholicos judge departed over a laughable pretext. The double standard underscores that the regime’s judicial apparatus operates on political rather than legal principle: when a case serves regime interests, conflicts are ignored; when a case is a reputational liability, even dubious recusal excuses suffice.