Court Rejects Robert Kocharyan's Lawsuit Against Nikol Pashinyan

The Yerevan City Court of General Jurisdiction (Kanaker venue), presided by Judge Sergey Sahakyan, has rejected the lawsuit of the second President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, against Nikol Pashinyan and the Republic of Armenia. This information was reported by the Datalex information site, as conveyed by Sputnik Armenia.

The court's decision states that there were no expressions made by Nikol Pashinyan during his speech on March 1, 2021, that violate Robert Kocharyan's presumption of innocence. The court examined Pashinyan's speech and found that it mainly represents political discourse, as it contains characteristics and assessments typical of political speech. Additionally, it includes opinions and reflections on issues of public interest, also related to the well-known events that took place in Yerevan on March 1, 2008.

“During the speech, the respondent did not specifically address any individual, particularly the claimant, and therefore it was impossible to violate the principle of his presumption of innocence, which is already sufficient to assess the claim for violation of the right to a fair trial and to regard the claim for compensation for non-material damage as unfounded,” states the published ruling.

The lawsuit pertains to Pashinyan's following statement during the rally held in Republic Square on March 1, 2021: “The then-governors of Armenia brought the army against the people, and made the decision to shoot Armenian citizens. It is very important to note that in this case, regarding the ‘March 1’ case, there are defendants who today stand before the court.”

Kocharyan's attorneys demanded from the court that the Republic of Armenia seize 2,000,000 AMD in favor of the claimant, Robert Kocharyan, and require Nikol Pashinyan to publicly refute the statements made about the claimant on March 1, 2021, spreading the refutation via the official YouTube channel of the Armenian government, the official website of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, through Pashinyan's Facebook page, and other media outlets including public television’s “News” YouTube channel, 1in TV’s YouTube channel, “Liberty” TV’s YouTube channel, 168.am’s YouTube channel, PastinfoTV’s YouTube channel, armeniasputnik.am, armtimes.com, news.am, and 168.am's electronic media.