HIGH COURT REFUSES TO DELAY ARMENIAN VOTE
By Ruzanna Khachatrian
Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
Feb 11 2008
The Constitutional Court on Monday rejected former President Levon
Ter-Petrosian’s demand to postpone Armenia’s presidential election
by two weeks because of state television’s perceived biased coverage
of his election campaign.
Under the Armenian Electoral Code, a presidential election can be put
off if one of the candidates is deemed to be facing "insurmountable
obstacles" during the campaign. If those obstacles are not eliminated
by authorities within two weeks, the vote must be cancelled and held
anew 40 days later.
In its appeal to the country’s highest judicial body, the Ter-Petrosian
campaign claimed that the election coverage by the state-controlled
Armenian Public Television, which has been highly critical of the
ex-president, constitutes such an obstacle.
Ter-Petrosian’s representatives spent more than an hour trying to
substantiate the claim before the panel of nine judges headed by
Gagik Harutiunian.
In particular, they cited examples of what they consider violations of
legal provisions obligating Public Television to be impartial in its
news coverage. One of them, Artak Zeynalian, said the Ter-Petrosian
complained to the regulatory National Commission on Television and
Radio (NCTR) but never received a reply.
In its verdict read out by Harutiunian, the Constitutional Court ruled
that the alleged obstacles are not serious enough to be considered
insurmountable. At the same time the court said after four-hour
deliberations that Ter-Petrosian’s complaints are "legitimate" and
should be addressed by the NCTR, the Central Election Commission
and lower-level courts. It warned that their failure to do so could
"generate distrust in the election process."