Summary of the activity of HCA Vanadzor in 2009

On December 27, 2009, HCA Vanadzor summed up its last year activity and publicized on local “Lori TV.”

During the program A. Sakunts  presented the actions carried out in the relation with the state and local  governmental bodies, law enforcement bodies, the judicial structure.

310 citizens applied to HCA Vanadzor and the other offices of the organization during the year.  The problems of 280 citizens were related to corruption risks.

Mentioning the successes of the year A. Sakunts underlined the monitoring conducted in all the mental health facilities in Armenia. Such monitoring is conducted for the first time. The results of the monitoring of human rights situation in these institutions will enable  the organization to come up with  recommendations for the improvement of human rights. 

Among the successes in the judicial sphere, the court case with the Ministry of Defense related to freedom of information was pointed out.  The organization applied to the Ministry of Defense to get information on how many people were to go to compulsory military service, how many people were informed about call-up, how many people got deferment and for how long and on what grounds, how many people applied for alternative military service, how many recruits’ cases were sent to the Prosecutor’s office for escaping from military service.  

The Court of Appeal and the court of Cassation have partially upheld the claim and HCA Vanadzor is going to apply to the European Court. 

Another success was when RA Administrative court recognized the Lori Regional administration’s order to dismiss their employee Armen Hovhannisyan from his job and considered that step illegal and as a political pursuit. However, he was not restored in his previous job due to reduction of the staff. This case will also be sent to the European Court.

There are a few failures in this list, in particular, the organization applied to the Prosecutor’s office of Lori Region with the request of obliging to make a decision but the court rejected the case. This position was justified with article 290 of RA Criminal Procedure Code, as if the organization had to appeal the actions of the Prosecutor’s office of Lori Region to RA General Prosecutor’s office and only after rejection to the Court of Common jurisdiction of Lori region. 

Arthur Sakunts spoek about frequent violations of citizens’ rights in the relations with law enforcement bodies. In spite of the existing facts of violations the police employees aren’t  called to liability. This promotes for more violations. 

Arthur Sakunts mentioned the monitoring conducted in local self-government government.  A legal analysis of the decisions of the mayor and the avagani has been done.

Cases have been revealed when a two-room flat has been taken from a citizen at AMD 17.000.

362 out of 570 decisions made by the mayor and 15 decisions out of 32 made by the avagani had corruption risks in them.

At the end of the program, Arthur Sakunts expressed his concern about the fact of ongoing violations of human rights in spite of the actions made in the protection of human rights.