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As we informed before, the RA Administrative Court completed examination of the RA Police claim against ‘Armenian Women’s Front’ member Susanna Simonyan on imposing on her administrative sanctions under Article 172.3 of the RA Code of Administrative Offences and Susanna Simonyan’s counter-claim on declaring the RA Police actions unlawful.

At the court hearing of March 16, 2017, the Court examined the evidence under the case and the parties gave final speeches.

S. Simonyan’s representative Tatevik Siradeghyan, lawyer at Yerevan Office of HCA Vanadzor, submitted to the Court a copy of the RA SIS decree on rejecting initiation of criminal proceedings based on the crime report submitted by S. Simonyan on the violence by police officers and other related documents. She expressed an opinion that the facts in the decree contradicted the facts collected on the case and the decree did not make it clear what evidence made basis for relevant conclusions.

T. Siradeghyan also submitted to the Court the draft Law on Adding Article 172.3 to the RA Code of Administrative Offenses and its reasoning received from the Legal Department of the RA Police.

After the stage of evidence examination, the Court passed to final speeches.

The RA Police representative considered the claim of the RA Police well-grounded and the counter-claim – subject to rejection.

In her final speech, T. Siradeghyan insisted that Article 172.3 of the RA Code of Administrative Offenses contradicted the RA Constitution at least in the sense that it contained discriminatory approach that administrative offense was considered the insult addressed only to police officers or military servicemen as representatives of the public authorities.

In terms of the Police claim, she mentioned that spitting, for which the Police required to hold S. Simonyan liable, contained no offensive remark, and even if the Court found that S. Simonyan’s action constituted an offense, it should have discussed whether there was any guilt in her action that might call for special knowledge.

T. Siradeghyan also provided arguments for granting the counter-claim stating that in the absence of any grounds for administrative offense, i.e. non-fulfillment of the legal order, S. Simonyan might not be arrested and taken to the police station and therefore, her rights to liberty and security of person, freedom of movement and freedom of assembly were violated. When restricting S. Simonyan’s liberty, the police officers did not introduce themselves and did not provide any grounds and reasons for restricting her liberty, rights and freedoms. T. Siradeghyan also referred to disproportionate and groundless use of physical force and inhuman and degrading treatment against S. Simonyan. In her final speech, she also analyzed the evidence obtained under the case and provided an opinion on their reliability.

Thus, T. Siradeghyan asked the Court to reject the RA Police claim and grant S. Simonyan’s counter-claim.

In her final speech, S. Simonyan said that the incident caused her to suffer not only physical, but also moral and material damage. She expressed a hope that the trial proceedings would restore her rights and cover her damages.

The judicial act will be announced on April 6, 2017, at 5:30 pm.