Yerevan Press Club has published a book “Analysis of Armenia’s Judicial Practice in Cases of Libel and Insult” (in Armenian and in English). Yerevan Press Club implemented the study in 2012 within a project supported by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The study has made use of the expert conclusions drawn by the Information Disputes Council, as well as the monitoring of the judicial practice on defamation cases, conducted by the “Rule of Law” NGO. The research analyzed the court rulings, made from May 2010, after the decriminalization of libel and insult in Armenia, till the end of 2012. The analysis was based on the following eight criteria: the public benefit and public interest as a factor for assessing the legitimacy of intervention in freedom of speech; defense mechanisms of fair comments, reasonable publications and reproduction of statements by other persons; regulation of defamation in the new media; statement of facts and value judgments; the balancing of the right to freedom of speech with other rights; the reasonable limits of pecuniary remedies to a person’s honor, dignity and good reputation; the definition and characterization of the term “information source”; violations of judicial procedures in cases of libel or insult.
N.B. Dear readers, please note that YPC Weekly Newsletter will next be issued in early September 2013.
