CC to hear A1+ case December 15
Ara Ghazaryan and Artak Zeynalyan, representatives of "Meltex" LTD, "A1+" TV, have issued a statement which reads,
"July 17, 2008, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that the RA authorities had violated A1+ Company's right to freedom of speech since the seven tenders for broadcasting license had been held with rough breaches of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights."
Immediately after the verdict, the case was referred to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe which oversees the implementation of the verdict by the RA leadership.
The Armenia authorities have reported to the Committee of Ministers of a number of steps taken in pursuit of the verdict implementation, in particular, they claimed to have compensated the sum fixed by the ECtHR, translated and published the verdict, amended the legislation in view of the order of tenders.
In September 2009, the RA authorities reported that a new tender would be announced in July 2010 to restore the Company's violated rights.
In compliance with the case-law of the European Court, the best way to restore a company's rights found as violated by the ECtHR is to reopen the case on a national level, i.e. to revise previous judgments.
To this end, A1+ Company appealed to the RA Court of Cassation in December 2008 with the request to reopen the case in connection with the "new circumstances".
In February 2009 the Cassation Court took the action into production, and dismissed it immediately, arguing that the Company's statement gave rise to questions which did not stem from the European Court verdict, consequently, the European Court verdict might not be considered as a "new circumstance".
In a statement, A1+ had required the Cassation Court to recognize the Company's rights as violated (as was done by the European Court) and to invalidate the controversial decision of the National Commission on Television and Radio and to announce a new tender.
The Application for the case reopening had been rejected in accordance with Article 204/28 of the RA Civil Code. In September 2009, the Company contested the Court decision in the Constitutional Court.
The CC found the appeal as admissible and appointed a hearing on December 15.
Investigation will be conducted in written form.
The Company claims that the statutory provision deprives RA citizens of the right to an effective judicial protection and of possibility to challenge their violated rights in international instances in accordance with Articles 18 and 19 of the RA Constitution.
In fact, the case wasn't reopened which means the ECtHR decision did not have a legal operation for A1+.
The Company finds that if the ECtHR decision is considered as "new circumstance" in compliance with Article 15 of the RA Code of Practice and it should lead to the resumption of production and reconsideration of previous judgments.
