Administrative Court of Yerevan deals with claim of ex-Deputy General Public Prosecutor of Armenia

The Administrative Court of Yerevan is considering a claim lodged by Gagik Dzhangiryan, former Deputy General Public Prosecutor, who was arrested during the post-election period and is kept in custody. The applicant claims to nullify the decrees of former President Robert Kocharyan, by which he had been dismissed and deprived of the rank of Class 1 State Adviser of Justice.

According to Lusine Saakyan, defender of Gagik Dzhangiryan, President Kocharyan's decrees of February 23 violate a number of articles of the Constitution of Armenia and the European Convention on Human Rights.

According to these two decrees of the then President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, Gagik Dzhangiryan was dismissed from the post of Deputy General Public Prosecutor of the country and deprived of the rank of Class 1 State Adviser of Justice. The respective petitions on such measures had been lodged to the president of the country by General Public Prosecutor of Armenia Agvan Ovsepyan, whose argument was that Dzhangiryan had "in the roughest way" broken the Law "On Prosecutor's Office", according to which public prosecutors are prohibited from engagement into politics. On that very day in the morning, G. Dzhangiryan had expressed his support to Levon Ter-Petrosyan and spoke at the rally organized by the first president of Armenia.

In the opinion of advocate L. Saakyan, the answer received from Ovik Abramyan, head of the President's office, is rather symbolic, as it follows from the answer that President possesses "monarchical powers" and "should not be guided by any law or regulation."