Quantitative analyses of court applications on slander and insult reveals that the print media are the most vulnerable among Mass Media. This is the conclusion of “Rule of Law” NGO in result of monitoring of the cases on slander and insults. The monitoring covers the period of 2010-2012 when decriminalization of the norms that determine slander and insult started.
44 criminal cases where the mass media were respondents had been selected for observation. The cases where mass media were third parties were not considered.
According to the observation 33 claims of the mentioned period were against publications in print media, 12 claims against electronic media and 5 claims against information broadcast on TV.
The most common claims were the request for pecuniary compensation for slander and insult, which were claimed in 38 from overall 44 cases. The claims for denial were made in 32 cases. Claims for Compensation of legal expenses were claimed in 25 cases. Request for pardon met in 10 cases. Granting opportunity to reply in 7 cases and request on publication of judgment in 4 cases.
The claim for highest amount of compensation was the 18.000.000 AMD claim submitted by the advocate Arthur Grigoryan, the lowest claim for compensation of 1 luma submitted Vano yeghiazaryan, Community head opf village Lernapat of Lori marz.
The quantitative analyses of the observed cases allowed the “Rule of Law” NGO to mention that the results of its montoing show tendency of rapid decrease of the amount of court cases.
The results of permanent observation showed that the number of decrees of court cases coincides with the course of constitutional court proceeding of Article 1087.1 of the Civil Code of the RA. The research showed that the decision of Constitution Court had had controlling result on the number of cases on slander and insult against mass media.