The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights has judged that Armenian authorities are wrong to have continuously kept A1 Plus TV off the air.

In its verdict delivered this week the Court said it had held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the Armenian authorities’ refusal to grant the applicants’ requests for broadcasting licenses.

The Court also awarded Meltex Ltd, the parent company of A1 Plus, 20,000 euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage and 10,000 euros for costs and expenses.

The case concerned the applicants’ complaint about being refused broadcasting licenses on seven separate occasions in the period from May 2002 to December 2003. On the whole, A1 Plus had made 12 such applications to date.

A1 Plus, arguably the only television company not controlled by the Armenian authorities, was controversially taken off the air in April 2002 after losing its broadcasting frequency in a tender administered by a president-appointed regulatory body.

The National Television and Radio Commission (NTRC) gave no clear reasons for its decision not to award the license to A1 Plus then and since has blocked all subsequent attempts of the company to win another frequency, again failing to provide any clear reasons for its decisions.

In August 2004, A1 Plus lodged a claim with the European Court, which this week found that the NRTC’s actions had effectively amounted to an “interference” with freedom to impart information and ideas.

“The Court considered that a procedure which did not require a licensing body to justify its decisions did not provide adequate protection against arbitrary interference by a public authority with the fundamental right to freedom of expression,” it said in its decision. “The Court therefore concluded that the interference with Meltex’s freedom to impart information and ideas, namely having been refused a broadcasting license on seven separate occasions, had not met the requirement of lawfulness under the European Convention, in violation of Article 10.”

Lawyer from Arni Legal AID company Ara Ghazaryan says that Armenia is to make a compensation of an individual nature, restoring the violated rights, returning A1 Plus to the air (by giving it a license through a new tender or in some other way) and giving the company pecuniary compensation. According to him, the state should also solve problems of general nature by reforming the legislation and practice on providing frequencies.

At the same time, using the verdict as a new circumstance, Meltex Ltd. can again turn to the court appealing the results of the tenders.

“The verdict was reached, but it is not over yet. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers will exercise control over the fulfillment of the verdict and Armenia will be under monitoring on this matter,” Ghazaryan explains. “Experience shows that the Committee of Ministers will go all the way until the rights are restored. It may take one to three years.”

This is the sixth verdict of the European Court against Armenia.