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On March 9, 2016, the General Jurisdiction Court of First Instance of Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun administrative districts of Yerevan, RA, presided by R. Mkhitaryan, resumed examination of HCA Vanadzor complaint against the RA Special Investigation Service. Note that by the complaint above, Artur Sakunts, Chairman of HCA Vanadzor, demanded to stop the inaction of the RA Special Investigation Service and compel it to make a decision on the Organization’s report of December 10, 2015 and submit it to the Organization.

The hearing was attended by A. Chatinyan, HCA Vanadzor lawyer and representative of A. Sakunts, Chairman of HCA Vanadzor. Tigran Khachikyan, representative of the RA Special Investigation Service, and V. Dolmazyan, Prosecutor at Department for High-Profile Cases at the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, did not attend the court hearing. The latter informed the Court staff by phone that he could not attend the court hearing on examination of HCA Vanadzor complaint since he attended another court hearing in Vanadzor town.

A. Chatinyan found that the court hearing might be resumed in the absence of prosecutor V. Dolmazyan noting that the Court had on several occasions taken relevant steps to ensure his presence, but he did not show up for any of the court hearings.

Presiding judge R. Mkhitaryan found that while the Court had provided sufficient opportunity to ensure the presence of the representative of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office at the examination of the complaint to give relevant explanations, V. Dolmazyan, Prosecutor at Department for High-Profile Cases at the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, did not attend the court hearing. The Court stated that the representative of the RA Special Investigative Service had expressed his position on the complaint at the previous court hearing and in spite of being duly notified of the date and time of the hearing, failed to attend it. Hence, the Court found that to ensure the presence of the persons related to the complaints, there were no more grounds to adjourn the hearing and therefore resumed the examination of the complaint in the absence of the representatives of the RA Special Investigation Service and RA Prosecutor General’s Office.

Plaintiff’s representative A. Chatinyan insisted on the complaint and requested the Court to uphold it.

The Court published the files submitted to the Court along with the complaint, particularly the crime report filed with the RA Special Investigation Service on forging referendum results at a number of polling stations, relevant response letter, the appeal submitted to the Prosecutor General’s Office and its response.

A. Chatinyan stated that the agency responsible for the investigation failed to submit to the Court the investigation files; this came to be another proof of its inactivity.

Hence, the Court considered the examination of the complaint completed stating that its ruling would be announced on March 12, 2016, at 10:40 am.

Note that in its report submitted to the RA Special Investigation Service on December 10, 2015, HCA Vanadzor expressed a suspicion that at the polling stations with 60 or higher percentage of voter turnout at the referendum of December 6, 2015, either stuffing or voting instead of absent people occurred and requested the SIS to take steps to establish the facts above, identify and hold liable the persons responsible for the crime. However, in response to the Organization’s report, the RA Special Investigation Service stated in a letter that the Organization’s application contained groundless allegations without any specific information on any crime either prepared or already committed, and it was a necessary condition to consider the application as a crime report. Therefore, no criminal and procedural decree was made following the Organization’s application.