At the Initial Hearing the Citizen of Lernapat Motioned for the Dismissal of the Judge

The court examination of the claim of Lernapat Mayor, Vano Yeghiazaryan against the residents of the same village, Gevorg Melkonyan and Boris Ashrafyan, began today November 1, 2011, at 2:00 p.m., at the Lori Region Court of Common Jurisdiction, presided over by Judge Varduhi Hovnanyan. Aravot Daily was recognized as a third party without an individual claim.

The interest of the Aravot Daily is protected in court by the news reporter, Ruzan Minasyan, who works for the newspaper and is responsible for the legal page.

The Mayor of Lernapat accuses the villagers of harming his honor, dignity, and business reputation and demands 500 000 AMD from each defendant.

The Lernapat Villagers complained about their mayor at a demonstration at the RA Government Building.   The complaint was published the next day, on August 19, 2011, in the Aravot Daily, in an article entitled “Who libeled whom” and became an issue of court dispute.

The defendant, Gevorg Melkonyan was not present at the initial court hearing. The plaintiff informed the court that the appellant went to Russia.

With the plaintiff’s motion, the court decided to call Gevorg Melkonyan back to Armenia, which was the reason for stopping the case.

Before the declaration of the official call back, the representative of Aravot presented the press release of the RA CC regarding the working decision of the CC, according to which a court hearing was scheduled for November 15th upon request of the Ombudsmanto discuss the compatibility ofdefamation articles in the RA Civil Code with the RA Constitution. Therefore, the representative motioned to postpone the hearing till November 15th.

The defendant, Boris Ashrafyan considered the lawsuit groundless; moreover, he motioned for dismissal of the judge, justifying it on the grounds that the same judge made an unfair decision on the previous claim of the village mayor. “This lawsuit is a continuation of the previous one; I do not trust the judge. They fined me for using the words ‘hungry’ and ‘bro’,” said Boris Ashrafyan.

The plaintiff considered the dismissal groundless, while Aravot believed that it was the right of the defendant to demand dismissal and left the question up to the court to decide.

The court will discuss the motion for dismissal on November 2nd.

Anush Bulghadaryan
Vanadzor

As a note, the car belonging to Aravot was stopped and fined by the traffic police in Vanadzor and Aparan.

Source: www.aravot.am