Public TV must be sued for slander and violation of rights: Aram Vardevanyan

Advocate Aram Vardevanyan qualified the coverage about CC chairman Hrayr Tovmasyan on Public TV as “disgrace”, saying that it difficult to find any other words to describe it.

“It is impossible to even imagine Public television of any member of the Council of Europe country come up as such a violator of the presumption of innocence. It is really shameful phenomena and I think as a legal entity the Public television must publicly apologize for such slander as each person may be criminally persecuted but cases when they are being acquitted and the criminal cases closed are also being registered,” Vardevanyan said, adding that the coverage presented the accusations as proved.

Asked about the circumstance that Armenia’s PM Nikol Pashinyan shared the coverage, Vardevanyan said, “I was recently viewing the precedent rulings of the European court, according to which such like statements of officials of any state institutions about person in pre-trial and even in any phase of judicial process is serious violation of rights. The state bodies and officials must be much more cautious about the presumption of innocence.”

Vardevanyan stressed that the report of the Public television is serious violation of constitutional law and noted that corresponding measures must be applied against it. In particular he stressed the necessity to file a lawsuit against Public TV for slander and violation of rights.