On September 20 the court of primary jurisdiction of Lori region started the
hearings on the suit of Vanadzor Branch of Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly versus
the Lori Regional Department of RA Service of Compulsory Execution of Judicial
Acts. The Vanadzor Branch of HCA demanded to oblige the Service of Compulsory
Execution to perform the court decision on the suit of the organization versus
the municipality of Vanadzor. The lengthy litigation between the HCA Vanadzor
Branch and the city administration started in 2004 due to the refusal of the
latter to provide the human rights organization with the copies of all 2,614
resolutions, adopted by the municipality and the Council of Elderly of the community
in 2002-2003. On April 30, 2004 the court of primary jurisdiction of Lori region
secured the demand of the plaintiff: the documents requested were to be provided,
excluding those containing secret information. The total amount of duty for
the documents was defined to be 1,000 AMD (about $ 2). This resolution was further
confirmed by courts of supreme jurisdiction (see details in the report on freedom
of speech in Armenia in 2004 on YPC web-site: www.ypc.am)
Due to the fact that the municipality continued to deny access to documents,
the HCA Vanadzor Branch addressed the RA Service of Compulsory Execution of
Judicial Acts. As YPC was informed by HCA Vanadzor Branch, in February 2005
the staff of the Service of Compulsory Execution provided the NGO with copies
of about 240 resolutions of the municipality and the Council of Elderly – for
2004, instead of 2002-2003. The next set of documents (around 270 resolutions),
this time for 2002-2003, was received by the human rights organization in May
2005. After this the HCA Vanadzor Branch got no documents, which prompted it
to address the court.
