CONSTITUTIONAL COURT STARTS CONSIDERING PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE LEVON TER-PETROSYAN’S APPLICATION

arminfo
2008-02-11 12:49:00

ArmInfo. The Constitutional Court of Armenia has started considering
the presidential candidate, ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s
application. His campaign agent, lawyer Ruben Torosyan, lawyer Robert
Sanoyan, and a member of Republic Party Board Artak Zeynalyan represent
the candidate.

Particularly, the applications says: ‘Due to the obstacles created
to the campaign of the presidential candidate Ter-Petrosyan, it has
become impossible for him to further campaign in conformity with the
Election Code of Armenia’. Thus, the application says the news program
on the Public Television ‘Haylur’ has been broadcasting programs
campaigning against Levon Ter-Petrosyan for three months hereby
violating articles 18.20.22 of Election Code and articles 11 and 28 on
the Law on Television and Radio. The application also indicates at the
inconvenient airtime provided to the candidates that give no single
chance to soften the anti-propaganda of ‘Haylur’. L. Ter-Petrosyan’s
campaign headquarters took all the measures stipulated by the law
to prevent the violations of the law, but useless. The claimant
asked CC ‘to recognize the obstacles to Ter-Petrosyan’s campaign
invincible’. The CC is studying the case. Article 52 of the Armenian
Constitution says that in case of invincible obstacles to the campaign
of one of the presidential candidates, the election are postponed
for 2 weeks.

In case the obstacles recognized invincible are not liquidated, new
election are declared and the voting is scheduled for the 40th day
after the above two-week term.

Lawyer Ruben Torosyan told ArmInfo the Constitutional Court is to
assess how serious are the obstacles created to Ter-Petrosyan.

The Court rejected the petition of Ter-Petrosyan’s lawyers to invite
Aleksan Haroutunyan, head of Armenian Public television Council, and
Garegin Azaryan, CEC Chairman, ‘in order they explain why did ‘Haylur’
program mislead electors on the day of Ter-Petrosyan’s application
referring to a statement by Armenian CEC that Ter-Petrosyan has not
applied for self-withdrawal so far. They are well aware that Ter-
Petrosyan has no intention to withdraw his candidature’, Torosyan
said. Nevertheless, the Court rejected the petition for it exceeded
the frames of the case considered. The hearings are continued.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress