Published on 22 April 2024
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 21915/18
Gagik YEGHIAZARYAN
against Armenia
lodged on 3 May 2018
communicated on 4 April 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
It appears that on 30 November 2015 Yerevan Municipality was notified that demonstrations would be held from 1 to 10 December 2015 at Freedom Square in central Yerevan. It also appears that the Yerevan Municipality refused the organiser’s request to allow erecting tents at Freedom Square by its decision no. 270 of 30 November 2015. On 8 December 2015 the applicant, who attended the demonstration, started setting up a tent at Freedom Square when he was requested by the police to desist from such actions since he had no permission to do so. The applicant left the site of the demonstration immediately after the intervention by the police and his tent was taken to a police station. Later that day the police arrested the applicant on a street near Freedom Square and took him to a police station where a record of an administrative offence was drawn up. It appears that it was stated in the aforementioned record that the applicant had failed to comply with a lawful order of a police officer to desist from setting up a tent at the demonstration site. Following an application lodged by the police on 5 February 2016, on 30 June 2016 the Administrative Court imposed a fine on the applicant in the amount of 75,000 Armenian drams for non-compliance with a lawful order of the police to stop his actions of erecting a tent at the square. It appears that the applicant neither submitted a response to the application of the police, nor participated in the court hearings. On 27 February 2017 the applicant brought an appeal against the judgment complaining, inter alia, about the failure of the Administrative Court to address the facts before it from the perspective of protection of his rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. He also claimed not to have committed the action indicated in the police record since he had left the site of the demonstration without finishing the setting up of the tent after the police had intervened. On 7 July 2017 the Administrative Court of Appeal upheld the judgment, finding that by erecting a tent at the site of demonstration when it had not been allowed by the Yerevan Municipality, and by refusing to comply with the order of the police to desist from such action, the applicant had committed the offence envisaged in Article 180.1 § 15 of the Code of Administrative Offences (failure to comply with a lawful order of the police intended to ensure the peaceful and normal course of an assembly). The applicant’s appeal on points of law was declared inadmissible by the Court of Cassation on 25 October 2017. A copy of this decision was served on the applicant on 3 November 2017.
The applicant alleges that there was an unjustified interference with his rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Has there been a violation of the applicant’s rights to freedom of expression and to freedom of assembly, contrary to Articles 10 and 11 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Kudrevičius and Others v. Lithuania [GC], no. 37553/05, §§ 142-151 and 155-160 ECHR 2015 and Navalnyy v. Russia [GC], nos. 29580/12 and 4 others, §§ 101-103 and 128, 15 November 2018)?
The Government are requested to submit copies of all the materials of the administrative case against the applicant and a copy of the Yerevan Municipality’s decision of 30 November 2015 no. 270 whereby the request of the organisers of the demonstration to be allowed to set up tents at the site of the demonstration was rejected.