Freedom of Information Center of Armenia.

The FOICA had sent enquiries to the Head of the Licensing Agency of the RA Ministry of Finance Karen Tamazyan and the Head of the Financial Oversight Inspectorate of the RA MF Sona Gharibyan on 29.05.2012 asking to provide the following information:

1. Have the employees of the Licensing Agency /Financial Oversight Inspectorate received any rewards (bonuses, gifts) in 2011?
    
2. If yes, then who have been rewarded (by the staff list) and with what amount of money (what gift)?
    
3. How much was the total amount of the monetary rewards of the employees of the Licensing Agency /Financial Oversight Inspectorate.
    
4. How much was the cost of each of the gifts received by the employees of the Licensing Agency /Financial Oversight Inspectorate and the total sum of the costs of gifts?

In response to FOICA’s request, an incomplete answer was received from the RA Ministry of Finance. The answer was considered incomplete since no information requested by FOICA was provided about those employees of the Licensing Agency and the Financial Oversight Inspectorate having received rewards and the amount of rewards received by each employee (the answer to the 2nd question). Therefore, FOICA sent requests again on 23.06.2012, asking to provide complete and exhausting information.

In response to double requests, a memo has been received form the RA Ministry of Finance, by which, making a reference to the RA Labor Code, the RA law “On Civil Service”, and the RA law “On Freedom of Information”, the information requested by paragraph 2 of the enquiry was refused with the grounding that it was information on personal data of the employee.

Further, FOICA has asked for information about the employees according to the staff list, i.e. not by names. In addition, according to the memo by the RA Civil Service Council, no restrictions shall be applied to providing information about the cost of rewards received by civil servants. The conjunction of the above two conditions indicates that the requested information does not refer to the immunity of the private life of individual civil servant.

As a result, FOICA turned to the RA Administrative Court with a claim on July 24, 2012, asking to:

1. Recognize the fact of violation of the right of the “Freedom of Information Center” NGO to receive information and oblige the RA Ministry of Finance to provide the required information on with what amount of money have the employees of the Licensing Agency and the Financial Oversight Inspectorate, according to staff list, been rewarded in 2011 (2nd questions in the enquiries).
    
2. For refusing twice to provide the required information by the Chief of the Staff of the RA Ministry of Finance Armen Shahnazaryan, as well as for not responding to the information enquiries and thus failing to provide the requested information by the Head of the Licensing Agency of the RA Ministry of Finance Karen Tamazyan and the Head of the Financial Oversight Inspectorate of the RA Ministry of Finance Sona Gharibyan, fine each of them by 30.000 (thirty thousand) AMD.

The first court hearing took place on November 14, 2012. By  this court hearing the primary court hearing was completed, and the case proceeded to trial stage. The next court hearing tooke place on March 5,  where the trial phase of the case was over. On March 20, 2013, the court published its decision, by which fully rejected the FOICA's claim.

On June 1, 2013, the FOICA appealed the RA Administrative Court's decision to the RA Administrative Court of Appeals. The court published its decision on October 17, 2013, by which the court discontinued the case taking into consideration the parties' conciliation.