On May 16 at the court of primary jurisdiction of Center and Nork-Marash communities of Yerevan the hearings on the suit of Association of Investigative Journalists of Armenia versus the RA Ministry of Nature Protection ended. The Association filed a suit on March 14 – after a year-long correspondence with the Ministry to get information on the results of the ecological expertise at the ACP (Armenian Copper Programme) mining enterprise in Alaverdi city of Lori region. The numerous queries of the Association were answered by the Ministry to the effect that the expertise had not been made as ACP company had not submitted the necessary documents. The last letter of November 28, 2002, posing a number of questions on the timeframes and results of expertise, was not answered at all. Because of this the Association of Investigative Journalists filed two demands with the court: to oblige the Ministry of Nature Protection to answer the query of the organization of November 28, 2002 and hold the ecological expertise of ACP within the shortest time span possible and present its results.
Several days before the first session scheduled for April 16, the Ministry sent the court and the plaintiff a written response to the query of November 28, 2002, thus complying with the first part of the suit.
In the course of further hearings on the second demand of the plaintiff the Association made a motion of involving ACP company and environment experts into the process as a third party. The court secured the motion.
At the last session of May 16 the reconciliation agreement of the parties was publicized. According to the document, ACP commits to submit the documents necessary for the conductance of environmental expertise within six weeks. On its behalf the Ministry commits to conduct the expertise within 80 days since the document submission date and publicize its results.
