The Requirement to Wear Masks in Schools and Other Restrictions is Illegal: Lawyer Gegham Simonyan

Lawyer Gegham Simonyan states on his Facebook page that the demand for mask-wearing in schools and other restrictions has been officially recognized as illegal by the court's decision.

Dear parents, based on my application dated September 10 of this year in administrative case VD/6107/05/20, the Administrative Court, composed of 5 judges, has confirmed that the guidelines for organizing activities in state educational institutions under the conditions of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are not a normative legal act and are not subject to implementation.

As a result, the restrictions imposed in schools starting from September 15 are illegal, and no one has the authority to enforce these rules on children and teachers.

Below I present a portion of the court's decision in full:

In this case, the applicant contests the decision No. 298-N of the RA Government dated March 16, 2020, on declaring a state of emergency in the Republic of Armenia, decision No. 253 of the RA Chief of Emergency Situations dated August 18, 2020, and point 17 of the guidelines for organizing activities in state educational institutions under the conditions of COVID-19.

According to Article 2, Part 1, Item 1 of the RA Law on Normative Legal Acts, a normative legal act is a written legal act adopted by the people of the Republic of Armenia, as well as by the bodies or officials envisaged by the Constitution, which contains mandatory rules of conduct for an indefinite number of persons.

In light of this regulation, first, having studied the text of the document entitled 'Guidelines for Organizing Activities in State Educational Institutions under COVID-19,' presented as the contested normative legal act, and the same document's text published on the official website of the RA Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, the Court notes that it lacks the formal criteria of a normative legal act. Specifically, it does not specify the name of the adopting body or official, year, month, date of adoption, sequential registration number, nature of the document, type name, title, surname, signature of the signing official(s), and the year, month, date, and place of signing.

Neither the text attached to the application nor the text published on the official website of the RA Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports indicates that the guidelines are approved by any normative legal act. Moreover, no such normative legal act has been published in the legal information system of Armenia.

P.S. Do not let yourself be deceived, do not allow...

Respectfully,
A father of a 10-year-old child,
Lawyer Gegham Simonyan