NEWS UPDATE
The Heritage Party
Yerevan 0033, Armenia
Tel.: (+374 – 10) 58.08.77, 52.22.38
Fax: (+374 – 10) 54.38.97
Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Website:
July 19, 2006
STATEMENT OF THE HERITAGE PARTY
Yerevan — The illegal actions of the management of the Paronian
Theater deprived Mr. Raffi K. Hovannisian, on March 4, 2006, of the
right of access to his lawfully leased offices at 7 Vazgen Sargsian
Street.
On April 11, Mr. Hovannisian filed with the Court of First Instance
of Yerevan’s Central and Nork-Marash communities an official claim
against the theater’s management, demanding that his right to use
the property for its intended purposes be restored. Hovannisian
simultaneously submitted a petition to enjoin the defendant theater
from blocking his right of access to his belongings.
On April 14, the Court issued an injunction prohibiting the defendant
theater from taking any restrictive action against the office in
question and the usage of the property located in it, and forwarded its
ruling to the Service for Mandatory Execution of Judicial Acts (SMEJA).
The Court’s April 14 injunction, which was to be enforced immediately,
was for moot reasons implemented only a full month and a half later,
on May 29, as the marshals of SMEJA reopened the office doors. That
same day, the theater’s director issued a written statement confirming
that the rights of occupancy would not be violated and consequently
allowing the resumption of normal office operations.
On the very next day, May 30, however, the very same agents of SMEJA,
accompanied by the commando-clad "chief evicter" of Yerevan, carried
out an extra-legal "directive from above" to vacate the premises by
force, evicting Hovannisian and his staff from the Heritage Party’s
headquarters. All office doors were again sealed. Ironically, the
only formal instruction given to SMEJA required, in clear language,
the protection of Hovannisian’s property from the theater’s management,
which the marshals had carried out properly the day before.
Article 5 of the Armenian Constitution stipulates that state authority
shall be exercised in accordance with the Constitution and laws based
on the principle of the separation of its legislative, executive,
and judicial branches. National and local bodies and public officials
may execute only such acts as are authorized by the Constitution and
relevant legislation.
This means the SMEJA marshals in fact took measures for which they
had no authority whatsoever. Thus, the second illegal action against
Raffi Hovannisian was committed by SMEJA itself.
With respect to the unlawful actions of the theater’s management,
Judge Edward Avetisian ruled on June 26 that the forcible closure of
the Heritage office was illegal, and thus the SMEJA seals placed on the
doors of the office had effectively expired. While the Court instructed
the plaintiff to pay certain installments on the contract, it held
the defendant and its negligent conduct to be solely responsible on
this score, thus constructively validating the five-year real-estate
lease that had been signed between Hovannisian and the government’s
agent in September 2002.
Today, there have entered into force binding judicial documents that
find the actions of the Paronian Theater’s management and subsequently
of the SMEJA officers to be illegal.
These rulings notwithstanding, when the Heritage Party reenters the
premises rented by Mr. Raffi Hovannisian, it is uncertain whether
the state officials will discontinue their mode of operations that
have no basis in law.