Lawyer Diana Grigoryan sued the Ministry of Education and Science. The problem refers to nearly two dozen teachers, who according to the statement made by the Minister of Education Armen Ashotyan at the press conference were dismissed from job for being engaged in religious propaganda during some lessons. In the conversation with Aravot.am, Diana Grigoryan told that they had requested evidences and documents from the Ministry of Education about which schools and which lessons and which teachers had conducted religious propaganda. “Although the Minister of Education had directly announced it at the press conference, however, they refused to provide documents and evidence, we appealed the refusal at the Court of First Instance. The latter and the Court of Appeal rejected our claim reasoning that the Ministry does not possess any information about it. A question arises, if the Ministry does not possess such information, so who the Minister makes such an official announcement. The ministerial representative said that the Minister Armen Ashotyan has made such an announcement based on the information heard on the streets or received through his Facebook page. It’s ridiculous, for this very reason the court rejected our claim. We submitted an appeal to the appellate court, which refrained from answering on this matter, simply saying that if the Ministry representative says that the Ministry does not possess such information, then it does not possess. At the same time, they said that allegedly, we had requested information about a person, therefore they cannot provide the information. If I am asking which schools are conducting propaganda, so whether it is information about a person, if you identify a building and a facility with a person, then it speaks of the level of your legal consciousness. In fact, the Administrative Court of Appeal identified the building and the facility with a person and dismissed our claim. The Court of Cassation returned the suit saying that there are no grounds for admissibility,” the lawyer presented the whole process.
She regrets that specific teachers did not apply, because based on some fear, they refrain from defending their rights. “Anyway, we have just tried to get overall information about the facts published by the Ministry, and it is already the second case when an entity is making an announcement, and we try to follow the statement and find out the reasons, when we get a response that the grounds are missing, the Minister had received the information from his Facebook page or have heard while walking along the street. This is a Theatre of Absurd,” added Diana Grigoryan.
Gohar HAKOBYAN
Photo from Armen Ashotyan’s Facebook page
