Արդարադատությունը հին և միջնադարյան Հայաստանում / The Justice in Ancient and Medieval Armenia

In this article the authors under systematized methodology had comprehensively examined the characteristic features in ancient and medieval Armenia. In the Assyrian and Sumerian sources, the ancient Armenian statehood describes Aratta as “country of sacred laws”. The foreign appreciation of “country of sacred laws” also has the significance of the characteristics of justice of the given country, from which it can be concluded that judicial disputes were resolved based on these “sacred laws”. As the researchers note: “The system of customary law here (in Aratta, author) was still based on sanctified authority and tradition, which ensured the living of customs by almost all members of the society. Therefore, the main method of implementing social norms in Aratta was belief formed through religious socialization, not coercion. In ancient times, as we saw in the previous description, the subordination of any authority upon the people had to be conditioned by either a military-economic or a religious (faith) factor. According to the latter, the ruler-king is appointed by the Gods and is their substitute and executor of will on earth. In Aratta, the high priest-king, who was also considered the supreme judge of the country, was endowed with such power. As in the ancient period the justice bodies were not separated from the administrative bodies, it can be assumed that minor crimes and the settlement of civil legal disputes were reserved to the jurisdiction of the lower state administration bodies (governors). Almost the same judicial system operated in Armenia during the Hayasa-Azzi kingdom, the Pan-Armenian state of Van (Nairi, Biaynili, Uratu, Ararat), the kingdoms of the Haykazunis, Eruandids, Artashesian and Arshakuni. However, when Christianity was adopted as the state religion in Armenia in 301, when the Christian doctrine became the state-official ideology, since that period, the secular-legal and religious-legal systems and their respective secular judicial and spiritual-religious courts with their powers were gradually formed. The following formed the system of justice bodies of Armenia in the medieval era; a) state or secular, b) church or spiritual courts.