ARMENIAN TV ASKS NATIONAL COURT TO UPHOLD RULING OF EUROPEAN BODY

Aravot
January 14, 2009, Wednesday
Armenia

The A1plus TV channel appealed to Armenia’s Court of Cassation on 19
December demanding that it review its previous rulings delivered in
2003 and 2004, under which A1plus could not broadcast, the opposition
Aravot daily reported on 14 January.

A representative of the Meltex company, which owns A1plus, Tigran
Ter-Yesayan, told Aravot that the company had appealed to the Court of
Cassation so that it "recognizes the fact of violation of the right
to disseminate information and ideas ensured by Article 10 of the
Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms"
and asked the court to "oblige the National TV and Radio Commission
to announce a tender" for TV frequencies.

The A1plus TV channel, which was taken off the air in 2002, won a
case against the Armenian government in the European Court of Human
Rights, which ruled that the government should provide the channel
with an opportunity to broadcast. The Armenian parliament approved
changes to the law on TV and radio on 27 September 2008, which offer
no opportunities for new TV companies to bid in a tender for the
distribution of TV frequencies till 21 January 2011.

In its application to the Court of Cassation, Meltex also asked to
nullify the results of seven TV frequency tenders, in which A1plus has
participated since 2003 and did not get a frequency. The paper said
that the Court of Cassation had not yet issued a decision regarding
Meltex’s application, thus, violating the deadline envisaged by
the law.

Ter-Yesayan told the paper that there could be two reasons for the
inaction on the part of the Court of Cassation – a "technical" one
and the one related to the recent changes in the law on TV and radio
broadcasting. He said the technical problem might be related to the
February 2008 fire in the Ministry of Justice due to which papers
of the court’s 2004 verdict might have been burnt. Ter-Yesayan
believes that the second reason is that if the court proceeds
with the application, it will have to announce a new tender for
TV frequencies, which is not possible under the current Armenian
legislation. Ter-Yesayan did not rule out that the sides might reach
agreement out of court if the Court of Cassation proceeds with the
application.

The Meltex company representative was optimistic about the situation
and said that "sooner or later a tender will be announced and A1plus
will take part in that tender", Aravot reported.