The suit had been dismissed by the courts of two instances; the Court of Cassation reversed the verdict of t?e Court of Appeal on Civil Cases, sending the case for a new hearing by the Court of Appeal. The first hearing was scheduled for November 24, but was postponed because the Mayor’s representative was absence.
Although the representative of the Mayor’s Office was absent once again on December 1st, the rescheduled hearing took place. The Investigative Journalists of Armenia reiterated their request to oblige the Mayor’s Office to provide the journalists with the information in question. The organization’s chairman, Edik Baghdasaryan, asked the court to comply with their request in order ⌠to create a precedent for punishing an official for not fulfilling his or her duties.■ Upon hearing the arguments of the plaintiff, the court decided to allow the appeal in full and ⌠to declare invalid the negligent action by Mayor Yervand Zakharyan and to oblige him to provide the Investigative Journalists NGO with the decisions regarding land allocations in the public park surrounding Yerevan’s Opera House taken from 1997 to 2003.