Who is calling the 'whimpering' judges in the 'new Armenia'?

Recently, a significant event occurred that strangely went unnoticed by our society. For the first time in the history of Yerevan, the Administrative Court has suspended a decision of the Yerevan Council concerning structural changes to the staff. This seemingly insignificant case actually has interesting layers.

Despite the changes affecting 35 employees in the Kentron administrative district, only 5 of them have appealed to the Administrative Court against the council, meaning the respondent is the Yerevan Council. The council's decision is not an administrative act, and even if there were grounds for judicial dispute, it should have been examined in a different court, with a different composition. However, the plaintiffs addressed the Administrative Court, which arbitrarily classified the council’s decision as an administrative act and accepted the case, thus suspending the implementation of the council's decision.

According to lawyers, this is such an obvious violation that the issue is currently being discussed both by the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Judicial Council. Is this an accidental misunderstanding? It turns out, no. Our sources assert that before accepting the case, an interesting meeting took place between former head of the Kentron administrative district Viktor Mnatsakanyan, head of the Kentron architectural and land use division Manuel Margaryan, former head of the Kentron finance division and current employee of the State Revenue Committee Tigran Kankanyan, and the presiding judge Hrach Ayvazyan.

The meeting occurred in Viktor Mnatsakanyan's office, who is now the director of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall. Just a few days after that meeting, the judge Ayvazyan accepted the application, and with a stroke of his pen, suspended the implementation of the council's decision.

It is also strange how quickly the court accepted this case. Typically slow, the Administrative Court took only 2 working days to accept the case, which raises suspicions. Anyway, the first court session is scheduled for April 27. There are reports that the plaintiffs, with the active participation of the judge, are preparing to endlessly prolong the hearing.

So where did this story begin? The thing is that, according to circulating information, Mayor Hayk Marutyan's decision to dismiss Viktor Mnatsakanyan was related to his connections with former officials and resulted in decisions favoring the former officials reaching dozens. The issue was decided to be resolved quietly, and Mayor Marutyan appointed his childhood friend Avet Poghosyan as head of the Kentron district, whom he trusts unconditionally.

The new head has implemented a very strict staffing policy, which can be described as a purge, resulting in the change of 7 department heads and the dismissal of about 30 employees. Sources in the Kentron district report that, in effect, political persecution is being carried out against all employees who, in one way or another, maintain ties with former officials, and intolerance is shown towards critics of Nikol Pashinyan and Mayor Hayk Marutyan; conditions are created for undesired individuals to leave the job voluntarily. Such cases are in the dozens.

A question arises: why is the head of the Kentron architectural and land use division Manuel Margaryan so tolerated, who also criticizes the authorities left and right? The fact is that Manuel Margaryan is a member of the Civil Contract party, having joined after the 2018 revolution and enjoys the support of a faction within the party that is 'anti-mayoral.'

According to our sources, a conflict situation has developed between Manuel Margaryan and the deputy head of the Kentron district, Armen Azizyan. Azizyan has documented instances of corrupt activities in the work of Manuel Margaryan, while Margaryan, realizing that law enforcement would investigate him, has filed corruption charges against Azizyan with the law enforcement agencies. We have information that several criminal cases related to this are being investigated by law enforcement agencies.

There is an opinion in the state system that this is a very typical situation for understanding what is happening within the power and ruling Civil Contract party. In fact, there are people for whom a party ticket or position is a carte blanche to engage in illegal activities, including corruption. By the way, the media has already reported on the ongoing cases against Armen Azizyan. In the near future, we will address the criminal case related to Manuel Margaryan, which contains quite interesting material regarding the activities of newly revealed party members and illustrates how, hiding under the party-revolutionary umbrella, personal problems are resolved.