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Yesterday the Administrative Court rejected the claim of HCA Vanadzor against the Ministry of Defence, with which the human rights NGO demanded information on how many servicemen died in 2009 and also asked for their names and address of residence. The claim of HCA Vanadzor was based on the law “On Freedom of Information.”

In February the coordinator of the organization applied to RA Minister of Defence Seyran Ohanyan, however, the latter refused to give information justifying that the information is considered confidential and official secret. Then the organization applied to the Ministry, this time asking to give the list of information which is subject to encoding, but this demand was rejected too with the same reason. 

There is a noteworthy justification in yesterday’s rejection of the Administrative Court: “Death cases relating to the service of servicemen cannot be considered a usual case, therefore the court finds that the respondent party’s position is justified, as such cases should be classified as emergency cases taken place in the armed forces.” Consequently, the information relating to this case must be considered confidential, not subject to publicity according to RA law “On State and Official Secret.”

The Administrative court states that there is no violation of the right to information freedom.

Referring to the justification mentioned above, the head of HCA Vanadzor assesses: “With its decision the court promotes conditions in which society and human rights institutions won’t be able to implement effective activity directed towards human rights violations – violation of the right to life. As far as death cases are related to most serious crimes, it is the way, with which the court ratifies covering of crimes, which is prescribed by the Minister’s order”-says Artur Sakunts. “In the explanation of the court’s decision death cases were assessed as emergency cases and based on this, they are included in the list of confidential information. But if you assess them as emergency cases then the definition of the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence in relation to each case remains out of control.”

Sakunts is sure that in this way armed forces exclude civil control which is a constitutional principle. It means that the court’s decision contradicts the constitutional principle.

HCA Vanadzor is going to appeal this decision of the Administrative Court. The data on death cases and the course of their examination, which the organization is compiling gives way to concerns. According to Artur Sakunts, the court deepens today’s situation with its decision.

Zhanna Alexanyan

P. S. Not very recently, the Ministry of Defence and the Military Prosecutor’s office used to provide information on death cases in the army without any difficulty, especially responses to written requests. Now they do not do that in order to say after every case that the number of death cases decreased compared to the previous year.