ArmInfo. Journalists of Armenia with litigation in administrative courts will video and photo shoots with the consent of the parties. Amendments to the Code on Administrative Proceedings were submitted by the RA National Assembly at a meeting on March 21 in the second and final reading.
Presenting the draft amendments, the author of the document, the vice speaker of the Armenian parliament Arpine Hovhannisyan noted that at present in the administrative courts for conducting video or photo shootings the journalist is compelled to ask one of the parties for a petition before the court. Quite often such appeals to the parties became a problem for the journalist in the performance of his professional duties.
Now it is proposed to establish a provision according to which journalists, for video and photo shootings, instead of petitioning, it is sufficient to obtain the consent of the parties and the permission of the judge considering the case. In the event that the judge of the Administrative Court does not give consent to video and photography, he must provide intelligible justification for the reasons for his decision.
The thing is, the reporter continued, that in practice journalists in the Administrative Court sometimes have to listen to such excuses, such as the possibility of video and photo materials appearing on the Facebook social network around which discussions began. A similar situation arose not so long ago during the court hearing about bringing to civil responsibility a civil activist. Arpine Hovhannisyan noted that now the court will decide whether to allow or not. In turn, the judge of the Administrative Court undertakes to give strong reasons for the reasons for his disagreement.