The Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan on Wednesday denied the appeal of lawyers Hovhannes Khudoyan and Aram Orbelyan, demanding to initiate a criminal case against Armenia’s PM Nikol Pashinyan.

Khudoyan told reporters that a criminal case should have been filed in one part of the appeal, and with the other part, the lawyers should have been given a reasoned decision. "We expect that from now on all such denials shall have proper grounds, all the grounds underlying the decisions shall be presented, so that people can see the possibilities of their appeal," he added.

Lawyer Aram Orbelyan had submitted a report to the Special Investigation Service regarding Pashinyan's statements. He demanded that a criminal case be launched against the PM—and under the Criminal Code articles on threatening to kill, causing serious damage to health or destroying large amounts of property; public calls for violence; obstruction of justice and investigation; and defamation of a judge, prosecutor, investigator, the person conducting the investigation, or the enforcer.