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On November 8, 2016, the RA Administrative Court, presided by judge A. Dilanyan, examined the claim of the RA Police against Vardan Balyan, who took part in the assembly held before the examination of the motion on extending Gevorg Safaryan’s detention on March 24, 2016. By its claim submitted to the Court, the RA Police demanded that V. Balyan was brought to administrative responsibility under Article 180.1(11 and 15) of the RA Code of Administrative Offences.

The pre-trial court hearing was attended by Sona Melikyan, representative of plaintiff RA Police and Senior Legal Adviser to Kentron Division of RA Police Yerevan city Department, defendant V. Balyan and his representative Tatevik Siradeghyan, lawyer at Yerevan Office of HCA Vanadzor.

Presiding Judge A. Dilanyan noted that the date for announcing the judgment was scheduled for September 29, 2016, but the objection submitted by the defendant called for the need to establish some facts based on which the trial examination was resumed. In particular, the Court noted that it was necessary to establish what acts were committed by V. Balyan during the assembly as to lying in the traffic road on Mashtots Avenue and the chains. The Court asked the plaintiff’s representative some questions on the acts mentioned in the protocol and whether the defendant committed them. Then the Court examined relevant sections of the video records submitted by the plaintiff and defendant parties.

Then the Court granted the parties the opportunity to make final speeches, if they wished to do so. The representative of the RA Police insisted on her claim and requested the Court to grant it.

In her final speech, defendant’s representative T. Siradeghyan brought arguments that V. Balyan took no actions to interfere with the normal course of the assembly noting that in the particular case, the “normal course” of the assembly was the realization of the intention to form or express a common opinion on issues of public interest, and during such realization the assembly participants should not be subjected to any violent actions. That is to say, the “normal course of each assembly is determined by the participants (organizer) of that particular assembly and depends on its objectives. The assembly of March 24, 2016 started on the traffic road of Mesrop Mashtots Avenue and V. Balyan took no action to interfere with its normal course. T. Siradghyan also expressed a position on the claim on bringing V. Balyan to administrative responsibility on the basis of his failure to meet the legitimate demand of the police on ensuring the peaceful and normal course of the assembly by noting that there was no law stipulating the police demands. Also, she found that police demands should be issued in a certain order and thus requested the Court to reject the claim of the RA Police to bring V. Balyan to administrative responsibility. At the same time, T. Siradeghyan noted that she also represented other assembly participants arrested on the same day and submitted to the Court copies of the materials prepared on one of them noting that the clarifications of the police officers contained therein exactly coincided both in contents and in form with those in the materials on V. Balyan’s case and assumed that they were copies of the same text. Thus, T. Siradeghyan noted that the clarifications in the administrative proceeding materials should be recognized as evidence with no evidential force.

The Court considered the trial examination of the case completed and assigned the date of making a ruling on the case on November 28, 2016, 3:30 pm.