Is the Court “axing”… for the sake of Vano?

Lernapat village Mayor Vano Yeghiazaryan had filed criminal cases against his co-villagers Gharib Mitichyan, Gevorg Melkonyan, Boris Ashrafyan and Kamsar Tamaryan, who had made “slanderous” and “offensive” statements in the address of the Lernapat Village Mayor in an article published in the September 1, 2010 issue of the “Zhamanak” Daily which caused damage to the major’s prestige, dignity and business reputation via media disseminations.

All of these cases have been tried (the trial of Kamsar Tamaryan is not completed yet) at the Lori Region Court of Common Jurisdiction, presided over by Judge Varduhi Hovnanyan, who primarily reached resolution in favor of Vano Yeghiazaryan by obliging the villagers to make a public apology via the “Zhamanak” Daily for the “offensive” statements and to deny the “slanderous” statements. The court made a discrimination against the villagers in the same social situation with regard to the amount of monetary compensation for the damage caused by “offensive” and “slanderous” statements.

On July 22, the court reached a resolution to partially satisfy the village mayor’s claim against Boris Ashrafyan and fined him only 314,000 AMD out of the 3,000,000 AMD and court costs demanded by the mayor (100,000 AMD for the offense, 200,000 AMD for the slanders and 14,000 AMD as a state duty). Businessman and village mayor, Yeghiazaryan took Boris Ashrafyan’s statement “shame on you, weren’t there more hungry villagers, other than your father, mother and brothers-in-law” as an offense, although many were well aware that the village mayor had allocated money to his parents and relatives instead of to the socially needy families the money was meant to help. According to the village Mayor, labeling his parents “hungry” is an insult, while recalling the names of his brothers-in-law was a slander as he had no bother-in-law in Lernapat. The plaintiff considers “Horomsim’s Norik was passing by yesterday and said that they had cashed out 100,000 AMD under the name of my deceased brother, but it was not his signature” a slander and believes that expressions like “ara” (rude manner of addressing a man) “this” “this …. has put up cameras” are contempt and an insult. The Court took the plaintiff’s words as argument and by taking into account the fact that the responding party B. Ashrafyan was a pensioner, a military instructor, owned 1 cow, 1 beehive, a house and lands, the Judge decided to exact money equal to four months of his pension. However, B. Ashrafyan (the other co-villager) notes that the plaintiff was Lernapat Village Mayor and his criticism was entirely directed at the improper implementation of the Mayor’s official duties, which was based on the previous publications over his unlawful acts and the information presented by law enforcement bodies. Moreover, Vano Yeghiazaryan is a primary mandate holder at the level of LSGBs because he holds an elected position. It is assumed that the residents of the same community, mass media as well as law enforcers can freely criticize him and the holder of an elected position should be tolerant to the criticism in his address. The village Mayor filed a case against Gevorg Melkonyan because Melkonyan had informed us that “he has set up “an illegal” basalt mine here, reached a criminal agreement with the former manager and borrowed a huge sum of money from Harutyunyan Samvel”. The Village Mayor considered the information as untrue by justifying that he had not received the leasing money in cash but via bank transfers.

Being notified from the village Mayor that the former stone mine had been leased to Harutyunyan Samvel “as pasture”, G. Melkonyan attempted to get information through the newspaper. “We’d like to know who is going to graze there… Samvel, the village mayor or the Avagani?”, because Samvel is not a farmer and has no cattle. G. Melkonyan labeled the decision maker Avagani as illiterate in the same article, but the village Mayor took offense and appealed to the court.

As to the insults on the part of his co-villager Gharib Mitichyan, according to the Mayor’s claim, the issue concerned the illegal construction built on Lernapat community property land by Mesrop Mitichyan, and son of Gharib Mitichyan. G. Mitichyan published “The Mayor has taken the documents of the house and does not want to return them” statement in the same article of “Zhamanak” Daily. While, according to the village Mayor, no such documents exist and Mitichyan’s statement was simply a slander. The Court made a decision to exact 69,000 AMD from Gharib Mitichyan, (who owns one cow) 60,000 AMD for slander and insult and 9,000 AMD state duty as well as oblige him to make a public apology and deny the slander via the same newspaper. In addition, the Court recognized that there is a criminal case filed against Lernapat village Mayor for exceeding his official authorizations and for official fraud.  These charges relate to the falsification of signatures of the Avagani members, provision of monetary benefits to the community members, etc.

Information regarding these facts was posted on the website of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office and the villagers expressed their opinions and criticism as well as made evaluation judgments based on those facts. In this case, it was the information source that violated Vano Yeghiazaryan’s presumption of innocence, and not the ones who expressed their opinions. Particularly, when the RA Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights prescribe that a person has a right to express his/her opinion in the best interest of the public. 

The villagers have a right to know how their Mayor runs his office; how he spends the money accumulated from the tax payments as well as to criticize when the community head allocates money to relatives and not the socially needy villagers on behalf of the community budget.  “Does this not mean that in the long run the Court violates the rights of people as foreseen by the European Convention on Human Rights over expressing their opinions”? 

Source: “Zhamanak” Daily
Elmira Martirosyan