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On June 29, 2016, the RA Administrative Court, presided by judge K. Baghdasaryan, examined the claim of HCA Vanadzor against the RA Special Investigation Service on the requirement on compelling the latter to provide the requested information.

The court hearing was attended by Tatevik Siradeghyan, representative of plaintiff HCA Vanadzor and lawyer at the Organization’s Office in Yerevan, and Tigran Khachikyan, representative of the RA Special Investigation Service and Deputy Head of the Department for Improved Coordination of Investigative Activities of the Service.

At the court hearing, the Parties made opening remarks.

In her opening remarks, the plaintiff’s representative presented arguments to the effect that the RA Special Investigation Service, in its capacity of an agency responsible for preliminary investigation, possessed the information requested by the Organization, and the failure to provide such information constituted violation of the plaintiff Organization’s right to freedom of information. T. Siradeghyan noted that the RA Special Investigation Service was under obligation to keep statistics of its activities and also submitted reports to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office and RA Police Information Center for them to keep integrated statistics under the procedure established by the relevant decree of the Government. Hence, the representative of HCA Vanadzor insisted that the RA Special Investigation Service possessed the required information regarding its activities under the pre-trial proceedings and was therefore considered as an agency in possession of the information and was under obligation to provide the information seeker with reliable and complete information in its possession. T. Siradeghyan requested the Court to grant the Organization’s claim by compelling the RA Special Investigation Service to provide the requested information.

T. Khachikyan, representative of the RA Special Investigation Service, objected to the claim and mentioned that the RA Special Investigation Service was not the agency in possession of the information, since it submitted the information required for keeping statistics to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office and the RA Police Information Centre and added that the plaintiff might obtain the required information from those agencies. T. Khachikyan mentioned that the actions of the RA Special Investigation Service were also consistent with the requirements of conducting administrative activities.

In response to the questions of the plaintiff’s representatives as to the response to the application, the representative of the RA Special Investigation Service mentioned that in case of receiving an inquiry, the issue of providing the requested information was considered in terms of whether the information in question was included in the reports submitted to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office.

At the stage of evidence examination, T. Siradeghyan insisted on the claim by referring to a similar inquiry by HCA Vanadzor to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, which was rejected as well and forwarded to the RA Special Investigation Service; then the RA SIS failed again to provide the requested information. The claim against the RA Prosecutor General’s Office submitted by the Organization to the Administrative Court was rejected on the grounds that the information was possessed by the RA Special Investigation Service. By request of the Court, T. Siradeghyan presented the number of the examined case.

Then T. Siradeghyan noted that the Governmental Decree invoked by the RA SIS did not concern provision of information on the articles mentioned in the Organization’s inquiry. She added that the studies by the Organization of the website of the RA Special Investigation Service showed that it mostly published information on the cases with preliminary investigation completed with indictment; however, the Organization could not be sure in any way that the website published information on all the cases.

Hence, T. Siradeghyan requested the Court to grant the claim of HCA Vanadzor.

The defendant’s representative insisted that the RA Special Investigation Service did not possess the information and was not in possession of some part of the information requested at all and requested the Court to dismiss the claim of HCA Vanadzor.

Considering the trial examination of the case completed, the Court scheduled announcement of the judgment for July 21, 2016, at 5:45.

See also: hcav.am