The Pan-Armenian Environmental Front (PEF) sent an official written request to the Yerevand Zakharyan, the RA Minister of Energy and Natural Resources asking to publish on the official website of the Ministry or to provide us certain information referring to mining industry. In particular, we were interested in the volumes on annual basis of the extracted ore, metals and associated components in 2002-2014, as well as the results of inspection in the mine exploiting companies carried out by the Ministry in the same period.
However, the Ministry, in our opinion and belief, unreasonably refused to put this information on the site or provide to us. The official reply provided arguments that the requested information under different provisions of the Code of the Republic of Armenia on the Subsoil are considered geological information and may not be disclosed without the consent of soil manager. This has nothing to do with the law and is violation of the public’s right to information concerning the environment. The information is related with the subsoil that belongs to us – the public, and the information on the extracted resources naturally cannot contain geological information.
Refusal of the Ministry to provide information on the results of inspections is ungrounded as well, on the assumption of the fact that the Ministry provided such information to us in 2013 as a result of our request.
We consider that this is gross violation of the right of the public to freedom of information and thus we have applied to the Office of the Human Rights Defender of the RA to undertake corresponding measures and steps to restore these rights. The Defender has accepted our application and currently is considering it.
We would like to call to the attention of all the officials of the RA that Clause 7 of the Armenian Declaration of Independence provides “The national wealth of the Republic of Armenia – the land, the earth’s crust, airspace, water, and other natural resources, as well as economic and intellectual, cultural capabilities are the property of its people…” Naturally, these people have a right to know who and how manages and uses these resources.
At the same time Article 33.2 of the RA Constitution provides, “the public officials shall be held responsible for hiding information on environmental issues and denying access to it.” So there is a question why Yerevand Zakharyan, the RA Minister of Energy and Natural Resources has blocked such information from the public.
Pan-Armenian Environmental Front (PEF)
