The basis for the lawsuits filed to the Administrative Court against the RA Ministry of Defence and the Minister of Defence were changed.
Peace Dialogue NGO changed the basis for the lawsuits filed to the Administrative Court against the Minister of Defence and the Ministry of Defence.
The RA Administrative Court is proceeding with two administrative lawsuits filed by Peace Dialogue. The first case would require the Ministry of Defence to provide official information regarding the fatalities in the RA Armed Forces from 2007-2009 including the full names of the deceased soldiers, the location of the incident, the date, unit number, unit commander’s full name and title, the cause of death and all other unrestricted information. The other case would require the Ministry of Defence to provide similar information for the period 1994-2014 and in addition calls for administrative penalties against Minister Seyran Ohanyan of the Ministry of Defence for ignoring the organization’s inquiry.
So far there has been one preliminary hearing on each of the cases. During the preliminary hearing the representative of the defendant presented a document stating that the Ministry of Defence authorised him to be present at court, however in this case the defendant is not the Ministry of Defence but the Minister of Defence himself, Seyran Ohanyan.In these conditions the Court did not recognise the credentials of this person and on those grounds the trial was adjourned until July 30,2015.
During the preliminary hearing of the other case on July 9, 2015 the representative of the Ministry of Defence did not show up at all.
Aside from the fact that the representatives of the Ministry of Defence showed up without proper documentation or did not show up at all, there has been no response or any verbal or written objections submitted by the defendant. Whereas, according to Article 86 of the RA Administrative Court, the defendant is obliged to present a response to the lawsuit within a two-week period starting from the day they received the decision that the case is proceeding.
In regards to both cases, Peace Dialogue NGO’s representative, attorney Arthur Soukiasyan motioned to change the basis of the lawsuits. The essence of the changes is that the Ministry of Defence has already provided the organization with similar information before (for the period from 2010 to 2011). Therefore, based on the principle of prohibition of the arbitrariness provided by the Article 7 of the Law on Fundamentals of Administrative Actions and Administrative proceedings, the Ministry of Defence is obliged to display equal approach towards similar factual circumstances and provide the requested information.
Posted 23 July, 2015
