February 27, 2007

Heritage Finally Allowed to Remove Property

Yerevan—Today marshals from the Service for Mandatory Execution of Judicial Acts (SMEJA) of the Ministry of Justice at long last reopened the locked and sealed doors of Heritage Party headquarters, and allowed the office staff to remove the property belonging to Heritage and its founder Raffi K. Hovannisian. The property had been held captive for nearly one year inside the premises which Hovannisian had lawfully leased from the Paronian State Theater.

During the inspection of the main office, which took place in the company of SMEJA officials, Heritage staff noticed that several pieces of equipment and other items in Raffi Hovannisian’s bureau had been moved from their original places. Despite the demands of the party representatives, the marshals did not officially take note of this evident fact.

The opening of the office doors followed Heritage’s numerous formal petitions—to SMEJA, the Minister of Justice, the Prosecutor General, and the Republic’s ombudsman—which previously had not received the courtesy, and legal imperative, of a reply. The sole response came on February 26, three days after Raffi Hovannisian had reminded a Yerevan press conference that Heritage was entering the registration cycle of the upcoming parliamentary elections still locked out of its party headquarters and deprived of its rightful access to its property and documentary resource base, including the party’s original bylaws which are required for election registration. Hovannisian had promised to secure his civil rights “in emergency fashion” if the doors were not opened immediately.

As such, the yearlong saga of Heritage’s office lockdown and subsequent break-in moved into its next phase.