On April 4 “Iravunk” newspaper, the party organ of “Constitutional Right” Union,
did not come out. At the press-conference, held on the same day, the Chairman
of “Iravunk” Editorial Board Hrant Khachatrian announced the publishing house
had refused to take the newspaper for publication. The refusal was conditioned
by the order of the RA Service of Compulsory Execution in implementing the court
ruling. As it has been reported, the inner party conflict at CRU conference
in September 2006 between its leaders, Hrant Khachatrian and Haik Babukhanian,
and the subsequent litigation broke not only the party, but also the editorial
board of its print organ. Hrant Khachatrian, having restored his rights of the
CRU Board Chairman through court, dismissed the Chief Editor of “Iravunk” Hovhannes
Galajian and the newspaper Director Gegham Grigorian, and on February 23, 2007,
“Iravunk” was issued with a new editor. On their part, Haik Babukhanian, Hovhannes
Galajian and Gegham Grigorian since February 27 started publishing an alternative
newspaper, “Iskakan Iravunk”. At the same time Hovhannes Galajian and Gegham
Grigorian addressed the court of primary jurisdiction of Center and Nork-Marash
communities of Yerevan, who secured the suit of the plaintiffs on November 20,
2007, committing the respondent to restore them in their positions and to pay
monetary compensation for every month of induced idleness (see YPC Weekly Newsletter,
November 16-22, 2007).
Hrant Khachatrian challenged the ruling, but on February 4, 2008 the Civil Court
of Appeals left it unchanged. However, the court ruling had not been executed.
