The Administrative Court of the Republic of Armenia recognized the violation of the citizen’s right to freedom of information by its decision on January 8, 2009, but rejected the request to compel the provision of information.
On August 27, 2008, RA citizen Artak Zeynalyan addressed RA Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Nalbandian with a request for information, seeking details on the following:
- Under Armenian law, do I and/or my clients currently have available remedies to appeal the duration of our case proceedings?
- If so, are they “effective” in the sense that
- they could have prevented the alleged violation or
- its continuation or
- properly restore the already violated right?
- If remedies are available, provide me with (or indicate specifically where I can find them) examples from domestic legal practice demonstrating that using the remedies in question has allowed others to obtain compensation and/or prevent the alleged violation and/or its continuation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not provide any answer to the request. Consequently, A. Zeynalyan filed a lawsuit against the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the RA Administrative Court to recognize the violation of the right to freedom of information and the obligation to provide information.
The defendant, represented by the RA MFA’s A. Karapetyan, deemed A. Zeynalyan’s claim unfounded during the trial, considering the question “unintelligible content” as conveyed by Zeynalyan.
Furthermore, the responding party stated that they intended to detail the content of the request. However, a phone number was not included in the request for information, making it impossible to clarify the required information. Despite this, RA MFA A. Zeynalyan received an answer, which he sent on September 9, violating the 5-day deadline for providing information.
Additionally, during the trial, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ representative informed that the plaintiff, A. Zeynalyan, sent the request for information in violation of the TA law. In other words, he did not mention his citizenship, location of work, or educational institution in the written request.
The Administrative Court of the Republic of Armenia (chaired by Argishti Ghazaryan) decided to partially satisfy Artak Zeynalyan’s claim against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia regarding the violation of the right to freedom of information in the judgment made during the court session held on January 8 of this year. In other words, it recognized the fact of the violation of Zeynalyan’s right to freedom of information while simultaneously rejecting the request to compel the RA MFA to provide information.
The decision remains somewhat unclear because if a right is violated, it should ideally be restored as much as possible, a step that the court did not take.
