COURTS IN ARMENIA ISSUE 2 DIFFERENT DECISIONS ON THE SAME CASE. A NEW DECISION WAS ISSUED FIVE YEARS LATER ON THE CASE AGAINST IRAVUNK MEDIA LLC.
On February 6, 2025, the Civil Court of General Jurisdiction of the First Instance of Yerevan city (the Court), presided over by Judge A. Dunamalyan, in an open court session, considered the civil case based on the claim of Arman Sahakyan (Paternal name-Eduard) and Hovhannes Mkrtchyan (Paternal name – Hakob) against defendants Iravunk Media LLC and Hovhannes Galajyan (Paternal name – Artashes), and issued a decision.
The Court ruled to terminate the proceedings of the civil case based on the death of defendant Hovhannes Galajyan. Simultaneously, the Court rejected the claim of Arman Sahakyan and Hovhannes Mkrtchyan against Iravunk Media LLC, reasoning that Iravunk Media LLC, which conducts journalistic activities (the publisher), disclosed the author of the published material when publishing the Article by indicating the name of Hovhannes Galajyan, which in turn means that only Hovhannes Galajyan, and not Iravunk Media LLC, should have responded to the plaintiffs’ claim, i.e. been the proper defendant.
New Generation Humanitarian NGO (NGNGO) considers the court’s decision to be unjust, as the facts of insult and defamation were established by the previous two judicial acts. The NGNGO is convinced that justice must be based on the rule of law, therefore, it is planning to appeal this decision to the Court of Appeal of the Republic of Armenia in order to restore justice.
History of the case:
On May 17, 2014, an article titled “They serve the interests of the international homosexual lobbying. Blacklist of enemies of the nation and state” was published on the online news site www.iravunk.com, authored by journalist Hovhannes Galajyan. The article contained insulting and defamatory information that tarnished the honor and dignity of Grigor Gevorgyan, Arman Sahakyan, and Hovhannes Mkrtchyan.
Grigor Gevorgyan, Arman Sahakyan, and Hovhannes Mkrtchyan, “listed” by “Iravunk,” filed a lawsuit with the court against Hayk Babukhanyan, Chairman of the Editorial Board of Iravunk Media LLC, Hovhannes Galajyan, requesting to refute the article titled “They serve the interests of the international homosexual lobbying. Blacklist of enemies of the nation and state” published on the iravunk.com online news site, to publicly apologize, to obligate each of them to compensate for the damages caused in the amount of AMD 3,000,000.00, to establish the fact of discrimination and incitement of hatred by Hovhannes Galajyan against the plaintiffs, and to obligate the publication of the establishment of the fact of discrimination and incitement of hatred against the plaintiffs in the concluding part of the judicial act on the iravunk.com online news site.
By the decision of the Court of General Jurisdiction of Kentron and Nork-Marash Administrative Districts of Yerevan city of the Republic of Armenia dated June 24, 2014, the lawsuit was accepted for proceedings.
By the decision of May 14, 2015, the court partially satisfied the claim, obligating the defendants to refute the defamatory and insulting expressions found in the article through publication and to publicly apologize to the plaintiffs. A significant amount of compensation for defamation was also awarded from the defendant in favor of the plaintiffs. The claim regarding discrimination (hate speech) was rejected due to the absence of a substantive legal basis in the Civil Code.
Hayk Babukhanyan filed an appeal, based on which the decision of May 14, 2015, was overturned by the decision of the Civil Court of Appeal of the Republic of Armenia on May 26, 2016, and the case was sent for a new trial.
A petition was submitted to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) by NGNGO defense lawyer Ara Ghazaryan, arguing that the decision of the Civil Court of Appeal of May 26, 2016, which annulled the final decision in their favor, violates the principle of legal certainty in accordance with Article 6(1) of the Convention.
On March 9, 2021, the ECHR communicated the case.
On February 13, 2020, the Court of First Instance of Yerevan city issued a decision, which partially satisfied the claim, obligating Iravunk Media LLC to refute, through publication, the defamatory information published in the article titled “They serve the interests of the international homosexual lobbying. Blacklist of enemies of the nation and state,” related to the plaintiffs’ harassment, insult, and ridicule of singers Inga and Anush Arshakyan, and obligated Hovhannes Galajyan to publicly apologize to plaintiffs Grigor Gevorgyan, Arman Sahakyan, and Hovhannes Mkrtchyan for the published insulting expressions.
Both the plaintiff and defendant parties filed an appeal against the decision, which was accepted for proceedings on May 5, 2020.
On November 16, 2020, the Civil Court of Appeal issued a decision to overturn the ruling of the Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan city dated February 13, 2021, and send the case to the same court for a new trial.