Ruzanna Khachatryan, the wife of the Minister of Defense, did not make any monetary claim against the “Hraparak” Daily and journalist Syuzan Simonyan.
To remind, an action has been initiated against the daily and journalist Syuzanna Simonyan because of publishing factual inaccuracies violating the rights and information defaming the honor and dignity in the article “Society wants to know”. Mrs. Khachatryan demands to delete the material and to publish the refutation.
“Ruzanna Khachatryan does not want to do harm to the media. She has only said that the information that she participated in the event does not correspond to reality and asked to refute it. But there was no refutation,”-said the representative of the accuser, Karen Mejlumyan after today’s court session on the same case.
The accuser’s side demands to refute the following parts: “About extramarital relationship and being involved in an accident because of which that person has died: these are slander and inaccuracies which factually violate the rights, thus they must me denied,”-the lawyer mentioned.
“What must be denied?”-raises the question the defender of the respondent’s rights Lusine Hakobyan and replies: “They actually said that they are displeased with the part of the article which begins with the following expression: “Some media became too curious and so on.” It’s a fact that some media became curious, so these facts correspond to reality,”-the lawyer said to us.
Another defender of the respondent, Tigran Yegoryan, said: “I have to mention about the issue of the slander and insult that the mentioned analysis refers to the promotion of interest among society and creation of a dispute and finding answers. Thus, there is no problem of denying the fact connected with the accident. No one presents such a fact.”
But Karen Mejlumyan objected in his interview to Iravaban.net, saying, “This approach does not have a legal ground. First, the Court of Appeals has made a decision concerning the rumor, that if it refers to being published in another media, then there must be a link which is absent in their article. According to the Court of Appeals, it must be verified in the source and that verification must not be a formality.
However, today judge Ruben Vardazaryan had some questions to the sides at the Court of General Jurisdiction of Kentron and Nork-Marash Administrative Districts.
First he said that after publishing the litigated material, another article under the heading “The Society Wants to Know: 2” has been published in the daily. The judge was interested how it was viewed by the sides.
The author of the material, Syuzan Simonyan said that they considered it a response and not a denial. “We consider it a demonstration of a conscientious press,”-added the defender of the respondent’s rights, Tigran Yegoryan. But Mr. Mejlumyan objected: “That is not a conscientious press. Mrs. Ohanyan (the editor of the “Hraparak” Daily) said at one of the previous sittings that the source material of the first article was so bad that they decided not to circulate it, but in the next article they publish that link: this means that bad material is already being spread by the link.”
Then the judge described a situation: “Let’s accept that the suit has been satisfied: what will be viewed as a denial by you?”- He asked the accuser’s side. Mr. Mejlumyan said that their claim is to remove the discussed material, and the text of the denial can be confined by the court.”
During the session the defenders of the respondent sides presented a document witnessing about the lawyer costs. Examining it, Karen Mejlumyan objected: “400 000 AMD is mentioned, but I think it is not a reasonable charge,”-he said, reminding that the accuser’s side did not make any money claims.
Gevorg Tosunyan
