Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

The court will decide whether the government has the right to keep secret the number of people and the amount of compensation given to people of Kirants who have lost property as a result of fragmentary demarcation with Azerbaijan. 

Helsinki Citizens Assembly-Vanadzor, headed by the human rights defender Artur Sakunts, has sued the government for the rejection of providing data on compensation, reasoning that the information is confidential. 

“It is not clear to us the amount of compensation for the violation or restriction of the property right. It means that, after all, that sum of money was paid from the state budget to citizens. Shouldn't we, as taxpayers, know whether our money was used reasonably and for what purpose? It is of great importance on which criterion or criteria the amount of money was determined. It is very significant not from the point of view of those people, but from the point of view of the rest of the public,” he noted in a conversation with “Radio Liberty”․ 

Artur Sakunts says that any information referring to human rights shouldn’t be kept secret. “It is not sufficient not to provide information on the grounds of it being a state secret, as in the case of each specific information, it is not right to set limits claiming it to be a secret but to justify what its confidentiality is."

It is not clear from the government’s response whether the information on the compensation was considered a state or a personal secret. Earlier, the prime minister Nikol Pashinyan had said in a conversation with “Radio Liberty” that the decision is confidential because here “there are issues related to the border demarcation.” Days later, the prime minister, in a briefing with journalists, gave another argument for keeping the decision secret, in addition to demarcation. 

“You shouldn't be sure that you know what is happening in the support and compensation programs, as those programs are implemented with secret decisions, and the decisions are secret because they contain private data,” said Nikol Pashinyan. 

The head of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly-Vanadzor, Artur Sakunts, counters that the public should be aware of how proportionally the compensation was given, especially since the state has announced that the border demarcation will be continuous along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. According to Artur Sakunts, the people living in the other settlements ought to be aware of what is ahead.