August 30, 2006

Justice Denied In Three Acts:
Heritage Headquarters Break-In Confirmed, But Criminal Case Refused

Yerevan—On August 29, 2006, the Heritage Party received official notification from Colonel Hovik Tamamyan of Yerevan’s Central Police Department that laboratory examinations confirmed that unknown persons broke into Heritage’s office and attached a “flash” copying mechanism and external monitor to its computer system on the night of March 8, four days after the Paronian Theater’s management had illegally locked Raffi Hovannisian and his colleagues out of their place of work. This finding notwithstanding, the police department concluded on August 24 that no criminal charges would be brought on the premise, clearly contrived, that there was no positive evidence, only assumptions, that any information was actually taken from the computer system and thus that any illegality had occurred. In an amazing display of Armenia’s “presidential justice,” the police apparently carried out their “instruction from above” to close down the case without questioning the management of the theater or any other possible suspects, in places high and low, of the criminal break-in.

This telling decision was issued in response to Raffi Hovannisian’s May 29 affidavit testifying that on March 8, exactly four days after Heritage party headquarters had been forcibly shut down without a legal warrant and further access to it had been blocked, one or more people had gained entry into the office’s main computer, where all information regarding the party, its membership, and its activities is maintained. In the words of Heritage attorney Zaruhi Postanjian: “After having examined the computer, experts from the National Bureau of Investigation affirmed that on that night, when the office was deemed vacant by a later court ruling, the computer was put in operational mode for 22-24 minutes and, what is more, was hooked up to a monitor. The results of the investigation demanded, therefore, that a criminal case be launched. In a flagrant disregard of law and justice, however, the police department refused to authorize such a probe, making dubious references to ‘corpus delicti.’ We will appeal this sham determination to the courts of law and public opinion.”

On August 24, the same day as the police department’s cover-up of justice, Judge Narine Barseghyan of Yerevan’s Davtashen-Ajapniak Court of First Instance heard Raffi Hovannisian’s complaint against the marshals of the Service for Mandatory Execution of Judicial Acts (SMEJA). Hovannisian had disputed their unlawful sealing of the Heritage office on May 30, only one day after it reopened pursuant to the injunction issued in the underlying case by Judge Edward Avetisyan. The SMEJA officers had forced Hovannisian and the office staff to leave the premises.

Reflecting on the illegal actions taken by the marshals, Judge Barseghyan seemed to pose a series of irrelevant questions with the intent to divert the proceedings from the subject matter of the complaint. In response to the judge’s query into Raffi Hovannisian’s current entitlement to the space, Zaruhi Postanjian noted: “This matter is subject to clarification and is currently being considered by the Court of Appeals. As for today’s petition, submitted by us to your jurisdiction, we are seeking a legal assessment of the activities carried out by SMEJA officials.”

Even though the hearing had resonated with the public at large and the courtroom was at full capacity, representatives of neither SMEJA nor the Paronian Theater were present. In all probability, they had advance confidence that they would not be brought to justice. Despite the absence of the defendants, Judge Barseghyan went forward with the trial and, in predictable conformity with the tide of Armenian “jurisprudence,” denied Hovannisian’s petition.

And finally on the next day, August 25, the Court of Appeals, composed of Judges Artashes Tumanyan, Karine Hakobyan, and Astghik Kharatyan, rejected Raffi Hovannisian’s demand for clarification of the judgment issued on June 26 by Judge Avetisian of the Central and Nork-Marash Court. According to that judgment, the forcible closure of Heritage’s office was deemed illegal. Separately, Hovannisian was instructed to pay certain rental installments for a period when he was not actually making use of the premises. Hence, the Court in effect validated the five-year real-estate lease entered into in 2002, but was silent on whether Hovannisian still could use the leased space until 2007.

Once again, nothing out of the ordinary took place. Abusing its prerogative to execute justice, the appeals panel carried out “in the name of the Republic of Armenia,” yet another special directive coming from the “presidential above.” And once again Raffi Hovannisian’s request, this time for a simple clarification, was rejected. “We have become permanent eyewitnesses to the successive stagings of ‘justice’ and the finale of the show is nothing more than an ‘old song,’ but we will appeal all the way up,” commented Heritage board chairman Vardan Khachatrian.