Freedom of Information Center of Armenia.

On February 7, 2009, the Freedom of Information Center sent an information request to the mayor of the Zartonk community in Armavir marz asking to provide the following:
1. The 2008 budget of the Zartonk community,
2. A copy of the Zartonk community 2008 budget implementation report.

The mayor of Zartonk did not reply to the FOICA’s request for information. On March 20, 2009, the FOICA filed a lawsuit at the RA Administrative Court to demand the requested information and to impose an administrative fine on the mayor. The RA Administrative Court admitted a part of the FOICA’s lawsuit and threw out the request to impose an administrative fine on the mayor of Zartonk.

On April 23, 2009, the FOICA complained to the RA Administrative Court, asking it to overturn the decision not to admit the part of the lawsuit about imposing a 50,000 AMD administrative fine on the mayor of Zartonk. On April 28, the RA Administrative Court upheld the FOICA’s complaint. By doing this, the Court confirmed that the Freedom of Information Center has the right to file lawsuits asking to impose administrative sanctions on officials.

During the hearing on July 30, 2009, the FOICA’s representative, Karen Mejlumyan, withdrew the part of the lawsuit asking to require the mayor to provide information (the mayor of Zartonk had already provided the requested information to the FOICA before the hearing) and to impose a 50,000 AMD administrative penalty. However, he insisted on the request to consider the Zartonk mayor’s inaction as unlawful.

On August 13, the RA Administrative Court decided to dismiss the case against the mayor of Zartonk, because the FOICA’s representative had withdrawn two claims of in the lawsuit, and the Court found that the claim to consider the mayor’s inaction as unlawful should also be dismissed, since judge A. Tsaturyan thought that “the RA Administrative Procedure Code does not provide for claims to consider action or inaction as unlawful, and therefore the administrative court has no jurisdiction over that claim.”

It is worth noting that this was the first time that the RA Administrative Court denied the claim to consider actions of a local self-governance body as unlawful. Many of the FOICA’s lawsuits with similar claims have been satisfied by the RA Administrative Court.

On September 15, 2009, Tthe FOICA filed a cassation claim against the RA Administrative Court’s decision. The Court of Cassation annulled the RA Administrative Court’s decision and sent it to a new exam.

The court hearing dated on October 3, 2012, was postponed, as the mayor of Zartonk hadn't received the court notice. The next court hearing took place on November 28, 2012, and the trial phase of the case was over. The court published its decision on December 12, 2012, fully satisfying the FOICA's claim. The court considered actions of a local self-governance body as unlawful and obliged to compensate the state fees paid by the FOICA at the amount of 24.000 AMD.