Statement of the Heritage Party

The illegal actions of the management of the Paronian Theater deprived Mr. Raffi K. Hovannisian, on March 4, 2006, of the right of access to his lawfully leased offices at 7 Vazgen Sargsian Street.

On April 11, Mr. Hovannisian filed with the Court of First Instance of Yerevan’s Central and Nork-Marash communities an official claim against the theater’s management, demanding that his right to use the property for its intended purposes be restored. Hovannisian simultaneously submitted a petition to enjoin the defendant theater from blocking his right of access to his belongings.

On April 14, the Court issued an injunction prohibiting the defendant theater from taking any restrictive action against the office in question and the usage of the property located in it, and forwarded its ruling to the Service for Mandatory Execution of Judicial Acts (SMEJA).

The Court’s April 14 injunction, which was to be enforced immediately, was for moot reasons implemented only a full month and a half later, on May 29, as the marshals of SMEJA reopened the office doors. That same day, the theater’s director issued a written statement confirming that the rights of occupancy would not be violated and consequently allowing the resumption of normal office operations.

On the very next day, May 30, however, the very same agents of SMEJA, accompanied by the commando-clad “chief evicter” of Yerevan, carried out an extra-legal “directive from above” to vacate the premises by force, evicting Hovannisian and his staff from the Heritage Party’s headquarters. All office doors were again sealed. Ironically, the only formal instruction given to SMEJA required, in clear language, the protection of Hovannisian’s property from the theater’s management, which the marshals had carried out properly the day before.

Article 5 of the Armenian Constitution stipulates that state authority shall be exercised in accordance with the Constitution and laws based on the principle of the separation of its legislative, executive, and judicial branches. National and local bodies and public officials may execute only such acts as are authorized by the Constitution and relevant legislation. This means the SMEJA marshals in fact took measures for which they had no authority whatsoever. Thus, the second illegal action against Raffi Hovannisian was committed by SMEJA itself.

With respect to the unlawful actions of the theater’s management, Judge Edward Avetisian ruled on June 26 that the forcible closure of the Heritage office was illegal, and thus the SMEJA seals placed on the doors of the office had effectively expired. While the Court instructed the plaintiff to pay certain installments on the contract, it held the defendant and its negligent conduct to be solely responsible on this score, thus constructively validating the five-year real-estate lease that had been signed between Hovannisian and the government’s agent in September 2002.

Today, there have entered into force binding judicial documents that find the actions of the Paronian Theater’s management and subsequently of the SMEJA officers to be illegal.

These rulings notwithstanding, when the Heritage Party reenters the premises rented by Mr. Raffi Hovannisian, it is uncertain whether the state officials will discontinue their mode of operations that have no basis in law.

19 July 2006
Yerevan