The European Court of Human Rights upheld one of the lawsuits of “Chap” company, known as Gala TV, against the Republic of Armenia.
The lawyer of Gala TV Karen Tumanyan in the interview to Aravot.am said: “We have submitted a lawsuit against the Republic of Armenia to the European court, to recognize the violation of rights towards “Chap” company, known as Gala TV. You must remember the case because you were writing about every court session. I mean the administrative questioning of the act at the administrative court when there was going to be an administrative act against Gala TV worthy of 25 million drams for additional tax obligations. Our courts decided that the act was legal and we turned to European court asking to recognize the violation of the right because, in the national court, that is in the Armenian courts, the case was examined without maintaining the requirements of justice. Concerning the rights, European court upheld it fully, it hasn’t touched the topic of material damage, but the moral damage which was worthy of 2.400 EUR and court costs about 1500EUR were compensated. The rest of the case will have to be examined again by our state courts with the power of new circumstances.”
Gala TV appeared in the sights of authorities before the presidential elections of 2008, when it did not obey to any command and gave airtime to the founder president of the Republic of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosian. This became a reason for this TV channel to appear under the constant pressure of the authorities. All the advertisers were threatened and stolen away, and the tax service made a case on them worthy of 26 million drams, claiming that they had not done their tax duties. What’s interesting is that the people of Gyumri did not let their TV channel be shut down. The same people that wrote this act secretly took part in the petition which was made to pay off the debt of the GALA TV and to save the channel from being shut down.
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Nune AREVSHATYAN
