On April 22 at the court of primary jurisdiction of Center and Nork-Marash communities of Yerevan the process on the suit of “Investigative Journalists” versus Republic of Armenia started. The plaintiff demands to be compensated the court losses and other expenditures incurred during the lengthy litigation against the Yerevan municipality. The losses are estimated to be 308,000 AMD (over $ 700).
A year ago, on April 14, 2004, “Investigative Journalists” filed a suit with the court of primary jurisdiction versus Yerevan municipality, demanding to oblige the latter to provide the resolutions, necessary for journalistic investigation. The documents requested were adopted by the municipality in 1997-2003 and referred to the construction in the public green zone around the National Opera and Ballet Theater. Courts of primary and secondary jurisdiction rejected this claim, the court of supreme jurisdiction directed the case for repeated consideration of the Court of Appeals (in new composition), which secured the claim. Then the municipality challenged the ruling made, however, on February 10, 2005, the Court of Cassation left it unchanged (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, February 11-17, 2005). Despite the ruling, the city authorities did not provide the documents and on March 17 “Investigative Journalists” addressed the RA Compulsory Execution Service. According to the law, the time, allocated to compulsory execution of court ruling, makes two months.
At the court session of April 22 the representative of the RA Ministry of Finance (which, according to the legislation, is a respondent on such cases) made a motion to involve the Yerevan municipality as a second respondent, to determine why the latter does not comply with the court ruling. The motion was secured.
The next session is scheduled for May 13.
