Local Impeachment in Vanadzor

On March 27th the court of first instance of Lori region partially upheld the claim of the group initiating local referendum against Regional Electoral Commissions #30 on obliging to make a decision on registering the initiative group.
The court decided to invalidate the decision of the Regional Electoral Commissions #30 “Rejecting registration of the group initiating local referendum” and obliged them to make a new decision with participation of the members of the initiating group.
On March 21st 2007, Regional Electoral Commissions #30 rejected the request to register an initiative group. The electoral commission made the decision by ballot without the presence of the members of the initiating group. In this case the electoral commission #30 violated RA Electoral Code.
In order to stop the violation the initiating group applied to the court of first instance of Lori region. The court obliged them to make a new decision with participation of the members of the initiating group.
If the verdict is not willfully executed it can be done through law enforcement agency.
In order to be more clear we should mention that this initiative group wants to hold a local referendum in order to impeach the mayor of Vanadzor, which is defined by RA Legislation. In case of being registered the initiative group should collect signatures of at least 5% of the general number of voters in Vanadzor (4600 signatures). Afterwards, the issue of appointing local referendum will be on the agenda of the municipality of Vanadzor. The group consists of 6 people, among them Arthur Sakunts, the coordinator of HCA Vanadzor, Karine Ayvazyan and Khachik Shahbazyan, residents of temporary dwellings, Sevak Derdzyan, member of the Union Constitutional Right, Volodya Abazyan, pensioner, and Edgar Khachatryan, member of HCA Vanadzor. They blame the mayor of Vanadzor for violating RA legislation, particularly, Land Code and the law “On Auctions.” By the way, the next session of the Regional Electoral Commission # 30 is planned on Monday. This initiative is the first in Armenia and it is really interesting how it will end. The positive result of the referendum will lead the RA governmental system to revolutionary changes, which is leaned against local authorities.
  “Haykakan zhamanak”, 31.03.2007