On December 4, 2023, the Freedom of Information Center of Armenia (FOICA) initiated legal proceedings by filing a lawsuit to compel the “Civil Contract” party to disclose information.
On August 23, 2023, FOICA submitted an information request to the “Civil Contract” party, seeking details about donors who contributed funds during the party’s fundraising event preceding the Yerevan Council of Elders elections. The request also encompassed information on donors who exceeded the limit set by Article 24, Part 2 of the Constitutional Law on Political Parties, and details on the refund of such donations.
Unfortunately, the “Civil Contract” party failed to respond to both the initial and subsequent information requests made by FOICA, thereby infringing upon FOICA’s right to access information. It is pertinent to highlight that the “Civil Contract” party receives state budget funding in accordance with Article 26 of the Constitutional Law on Political Parties, and, as stipulated by Article 4 of the same law, is obligated to uphold the principles of transparency, publicity, and accountability in its activities.
The origin of FOICA inquiry is traced back to a request by the “infocom.am” news site from the “Information Committee,” an informational non-governmental organization. On August 9, 2023, a journalist from Infocom approached the “Civil Contract” party with a similar information request related to the fundraising event before the Yerevan Council of the Elders elections. The party’s response, indicating organizational challenges due to the impending elections, sought an extension to address the journalist’s query.
In an additional communication, citing provisions from the Law on Public Affairs, the Infocom journalist argued that organizational challenges alone did not constitute a valid reason for an indefinite delay in responding to the survey. The journalist requested information on the reasons for the delay and the specified deadline for providing the required information.
Despite the absence of an official response from the party, including the requested information, the journalist turned to the Freedom of Information Center (FOICA), seeking assistance in obtaining the relevant information.
The case was assigned to Judge Kima Arzumanyan of the Yerevan Civil Court. On December 14, 2023, the Civil Court of First Instance of Yerevan accepted the claim for proceedings (court case N: ED2/41477/02/23), marking a significant step in the legal pursuit of information disclosure. Case reference in “DataԼex” judicial information system.
On January 8, 2023, at the suggestion of the “Civil Agreement” party, a conciliation agreement was signed between the parties, according to which the party undertook to provide the information required by the claim and to compensate the state duty paid by FOICA in the amount determined by the RA Law “On State Duty”.
On January 12, 2023, the “Civil Contract” party submitted the required information to the FOICA. The answer to the request can be found here.
The court decided to approve the settlement agreement. It deemed the matter of court costs as resolved and concluded the proceedings based on the affirmation of the settlement agreement between the parties.
The court’s decision was published on January 16, 2024.
