Armenian authorities moved on Thursday to again imprison the mayor of the southeastern town of Goris who has refused to step down following the entry into force of a court ruling that bars him from holding public office.
The 33-year-old mayor, Arush Arushanyan, who has challenged Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the past, spent several months in jail before receiving in March 2022 a suspended prison sentence for assault and abuse of power. A Goris court also ruled that he cannot hold any local government posts for the next five years.
The verdict was subsequently upheld by two appeals courts and took effect on July 24. Citing this fact, the Armenian Justice Ministry’s Probation Service notified the municipal council of Goris on August 16 that it must remove Arushanyan from office.
The council controlled by Arushanyan’s bloc rejected the demand on Monday, saying that Armenian laws on local government contain no provisions on the impeachment of mayors convicted by courts.
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The Probation Service responded by accusing Arushanyan of violating terms of his suspended six-month jail term and petitioning the court to send him back to prisomn. The Justice Ministry defended the move, saying that the Goris mayor is refusing to step aside in breach of the 2022 verdict.
“Nobody has the right to not comply with a court verdict,” Deputy Justice Minister Armenuhi Harutiunian told reporters.
Arushanyan’s lawyer, Armen Melkonian, described the Probation Service’s decision as illegal and defended the Goris council’s refusal to replace the mayor. However, Arushanian disagreed with the lawyer’s criticism, saying that the service “did what it found to be within its powers.”
“The court will give the final solution to this issue,” the Yerevan newspaper Hraparak quoted him as saying.
Arushanyan, who has run Goris since 2017, was one of the four heads of major communities of the Syunik province who were arrested shortly after June 2021 parliamentary elections on various charges rejected by them as politically motivated. They all demanded Pashinyan’s resignation before joining the main opposition Hayastan alliance set up by former President Robert Kocharian in the run-up to the snap polls.
Arushanyan has avoided publicly criticizing Pashinyan for the last two years, fueling media speculation he is no longer affiliated with the Armenian opposition. Backtracking on his past statements, he told Hraparak that he does not regard the criminal case against him as political persecution.
“I’m not a politician,” Arushanyan declared nearly three years after his bloc defeated Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party by a wide margin in a local election in Goris.
