Court Rejects Art-Activist Group’s Lawsuit Against Armenian Police

The Administrative Court of the Republic of Armenia (RA) rejected the lawsuit of four members of the artist-activist group Art Laboratoria ("art lab") against the RA Police. The artist-activists were asking the court to annul RA Police Arabkir Division Chief Grisha Amirkhanyan's December 2013 decision to fine them each 30,000 AMD (about $75 USD) for stencilling on the walls of Armenia's National Assembly on Nov. 10, 2013, the portrait of Shant Harutyunyan, a political activist detained during clashes with police in Yerevan on Nov. 5, 2013.

The court justified its decision by claiming it received the suit two days late. That the delay was due to the postal service delivery, the court didn't consider a valid excuse. 

The artist-activists' representative, Helsinki Association for Human Rights attorney Gayane Khachatryan, speaking to Epress.am, said: "The court could have recognized as valid the two days missed of the judicial deadline for launching a lawsuit, as it occurred as a result of the postal service's late delivery of the return notice receipts. But the administrative court invoked the Jan. 7, 2014 decision of the RA Constitutional Court's no-longer-valid RA Administrative Procedure Code, explaining that it wasn't obliged to append to the suit evidence attesting to receiving the defendants' claim. Meanwhile, that procedure is provided in the code that entered into force in January this year, and the RA Constitutional Court's ruling is not applicable with respect to the new code."

According to her, the legislator allowed for a violation from the start, since adopting a new administrative procedure code, it ignored the RA Constitutional Court's ruling. Also, a need arose for the RA Constitutional Court to adopt a new ruling that will be applicable with respect to the existing code. 

A complaint against the Administrative Court ruling has been submitted to the Court of Appeals