On February 22 the Chamber of Civil and Commercial Cases of the RA Court of Cassation declined the challenge of the Ministry of State Revenues of Armenia on the suit of independent press dissemination agency “Ogostos”, the founder and the publisher of a radical opposition newspaper “Chorrord Ishkhanutyun”.
As it has already been reported, on January 4, 2002, the Commercial Court of primary jurisdiction made a decision of satisfying the suit of “Ogostos” agency versus the RA Ministry of State Revenues. According to the court decision, the requirement of the Ministry for the payment of 8 million drams (over $14,000) to be made by the agency is illegitimate (see details in YPC Weekly Newsletter, December 22, 2001 – January 11, 2002).
This decision by the Commercial Court did not satisfy the Ministry of State Revenues, and the plaintiff appealed to the supreme jurisdiction body of the country. The main argument of the Ministry representatives was the legitimacy of the sanction imposed on “Ogostos”, yet the plaintiff failed to convince the Court of Cassation.