Freedom of Information Center of Armenia.

On September 9, 2009, the Freedom of Information Center applied to the RA Constitutional Court revealing deficiencies in the RA Code of Administrative Offences. Alhough the RA Constitutional Court rejected the Freedom of Information Center’s appeal by its decision of 05.02.2010 but it noted that there is a gap in the RA Code of Administrative Offences. As a result, on January 31, 2011, the RA National Assembly made appropriate changes in the RA Code of Administrative Offences. Finally Article 189.7, which defines responsibility for the officials who violate the FOI right and was out use for more than 10 years, began to work.

Background is as follows: On the 5th of February, 2010 the RA Constitutional Court heard the claim of the Freedom of Information Center to declare the 151st and the 152nd articles of the RA Administrative Procedure Code as contradicting the RA Constitution. Those articles stipulated that a protocol on administrative violation is needed to impose an administrative penalty on officials having violated the freedom of information right. On that very day the court announced its decision. The Constitutional Court decided that 151st and 152nd articles of the RA Administrative Procedure Code do not contradict the RA Constitution. The Constitutional Court stated that the problem lies in the legislative gap in this sphere. It is necessary that the competent body, i.e. the RA National Assembly, implement a proper initiative in order to fill the legislative gap by improving the RA Code of Administrative Offence and by creating an administrative penalizing system. The president of the RA Constitutional Court Gagik Harutyunyan thanked the FOICA for touching upon such an important issue http://www.foi.am/en/all-cases/item/205/.

This initiative of FOICA did not go unnoticed: following this decision, on January 31, 2011, the RA National Assembly adopted the amendments in the RA Code of Administrative Offences, the requirement to write a statement on the fact of FOI administrative violations was removed. Thus, due to these amendments, according to the last paragraph of Article 254 of the RA Code of Administrative Offences, no statement is needed when the access to information right is violated meaning that the mere fact of violation of the freedom of information right is enough for imposing administrative penalty on an official.