On May 24 the court of primary jurisdiction of Center and Nork-Marash communities of Yerevan ruled to secure the suit of “Investigative Journalists” NGO versus Republic of Armenia. As it has been reported, the plaintiff demanded to be compensated the court losses and other expenditures of 308,000 AMD (over $ 700), incurred during the lengthy litigation against the Yerevan municipality (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, April 15-28, 2005).
The litigation against the Yerevan administration started over a year ago (April 14, 2004) and was related to the refusal to provide the resolutions, necessary for the 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. Despite the ruling, the city authorities did not provide the documents, and on March 17 “Investigative Journalists” addressed the RA Compulsory Execution Service. Since the two-month period, allocated by the law to compulsory execution, has expired, one can hope, that soon the case on the obstinate refusal of the Yerevan municipality to provide necessary information to the journalistic organization will be resolved.
