Yerevan Administrative Court chaired by Judge Artsruni Mirzoyan rejected on March 24 the EcoDar NGO's appeal against RA Government. The court, though accepting the appeal for consideration, decided that the non-government organization had no right to appeal an environmental violation.

Chairman of EcoDar Hrayr Savzyan told reporters such a decision was anticipated and that it could "support us in being more confident when applying to international instances, e.g. the European Court or Aarhus Committee which already considers our communication and this will make them pay more attention to this problem."

Hayk Alumyan, attorney of the NGO, who had still yesterday predicted that he court would reject the lawsuit, said the grounds for the rejection in the published verdict are very far from law and reality.   

The court rejected the appeal on the grounds that EcoDar had no right to appeal an environmental violation since "the NGO's rights and responsibilities do not involve environmental problems."

Being recognized a due applicant, EcoDar NGO appeals Government decisions of different years', in particular, demands to recognize as illegal two conclusions by the state environmental expertise committee of the Ministry of Environment of Armenia - Government's decisions on exploitation of Teghut deposit as well as on granting Teghut deposit to the Armenian Copper Program for exploitation.

The appeal is substantiated by the damages exploitation will cause to nature and economy.

As for the published verdict, the attorney defined it as very bad. Such a verdict was not a surprise for him but he had hoped that at least there would be a public trial. 

"I knew there was pressure on the court, that it would not dare to make a decision in our favor taking into account what huge financial means and what people were involved in this case. Everything was done in technologies to exclude public enquiry, to deprive the society of the chance to make its own understanding of everything."  

Hayk Alumyan explains all this by the fact that we have entered a new stage when unlawfulness is done differently.

"Formerly there used to be a trial and then an unlawful judgment was delivered. Now they don't even have a trial. They are updating the process. We can state that they illegally avoided a trial."  

The attorney explains that an express trial is applied when the lawsuit is obviously illegal or obviously unsubstantiated, "so it is possible to come to a final conclusion without considering evidence." 

Representative of the claimant Hayk Alumyan insists that in this case there is absolutely no basis for using the above method.    

"The court did not want a public enquiry because in that case the very serious violations that took place would be revealed. This absurd situation that is currently going on can only serve short term goals - to hide some things from the society right now. But ultimately I am sure that we will win this case," the attorney said with confidence.

It is worth reminding that the Administrative Court had twice rejected to consider the case and accepted the appeal only after the verdict of the Court of Cassation.