On November 8, RA Civil Court of Appeals revoked the complaint of the Armenian Word of Life Religious Community of Christian Evangelic Church and its Head, Senior Pastor Artur Simonian regarding the decision of court of general jurisdiction on the suit versus “Iravunk Media” LLC, founder of “Iravunk-Investigation” and “Argumenti Nedeli v Armenii” weeklies. As we have reported, the basis for the suit became the articles and collages, published in the weeklies in October 2011. The pieces spoke negatively about the Word of Life and the Senior Pastor. The plaintiffs demanded to publish a refutation and to bring apologies in both newspapers. On July 31, 2012 the Court of General Jurisdiction of Kentron and Nork-Marash Administrative Districts of Yerevan revoked the suit (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, September 3-6, 2012). The plaintiffs contested this ruling at the RA Civil Court of Appeals, which took the complaint into consideration on September 29. The hearings at the second court instance were held on October 25.
On November 8, Civil Court of Appeals upheld the ruling of the court of general jurisdiction. At the same time, the Court of Appeals revised the size of the respondent’s lawyer costs to be paid off by the plaintiffs. Initially, the court of first instance had defined them in the amount of 300,000 AMD (about $ 730), but the Court of Appeals considered 100,00 AMD as a more reasonable sum.
