Freedom of Information Center of Armenia.

This is the first time, that the Court imposes an administrative penalty in the form of fine on an official for violating a person’s access to information right.

On February 2, 2009, the FOICA has requested the following information from the mayor of Yelpin:
1. A copy of the Yelpin community’s 2008 budget,
2. A copy of the Yelpin community 2008 budget implementation report.

The FOI Center’s request remained unanswered. The FOICA received a reply from the mayor of Yelpin only after turning to the court.

On the 18th of March, 2009, the FOICA applied to the RA Administrative Court with the claims to recognize the action of the self-governing body illegitimate, to oblige the village municipallity of Elpin to provide the requested information within 5 days, to define administrative penalty for the Mayor of Elpin Khoren Avetisyan and fine him for 50.000 AMD as well as to compensate the legal expences made by FOICA.

On July 6, the RA Administrative Court, with Judge Arthur Poghosyan presiding, reached an unprecedented decision when it upheld the Freedom of Information Center’s claim to impose an administrative penalty on an official for his failure to provide information.

As a result, the mayor of the village of Yelpin (Vayots Dzor marz), Khoren Avetisyan payed a 50,000 AMD fine for failing to provide the information requested by the FOI Center on time.