Recently, the Administrative Court granted the lawsuit of the “Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression” and recognize the activities of the Ministry of Transport and Communications illegitimate. The Committee requested for information from the Minister Gagik Beglaryan regarding the Government program on digital television and radio transmission, and the Ministry had dismissed the request. As per information of “Pastinfo”, the Ministry of Transport and Communications is planning to appeal the Administrative Court’s decision in favor of Committee and has applied to the Court of Appeal. In this regard, in the interview with Aravot.am, the President of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression Ashot Melikyan said that the state agencies usually continue applying to the second and third instances. “Apparently, it’s also an internally adopted practice. However, I hope that like in previous similar cases, this time the Court of Appeal and Court of Cassation would be able to protect our right to information, especially since the local authority, in fact, has violated the requirements that are stipulated by the Law on Freedom of Information. I think that the Court of First Instance had issued a fairly objective assessment, and it will remain until the end.” Mr. Melikyan said that the Committee wants the Court to recognize the activities of the Ministry illegitimate. “We have already received this information, but with this move we are trying to ensure that the state agencies would change their practices, and would not dismiss the request of any citizen, individual, and organization to receive the information, and respond in accordance with the law.” We wanted to know whether the Ministry of Transport, in fact, did not want to give out the information, moreover, it did not make an effort to find the documents and do some extra work, Ashot Melikyan responded, “It is very difficult to guess the original reason because they did not give out the information in the beginning, later they provided the full information. Our entire goal of this work is to make the state agencies learn to work in accordance with the law.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
