On August 17, Hetq reporter Sousanna Shahnazaryan was removed from the Syunik Regional Court of Jurisdiction on the orders of Judge Murad Hovakimyan.

The reporter had travelled to Syunik to cover the court case initiated by the plaintiff AgriCreditAgricoleBank. The bank's lawyers motioned the court to hear the case behind closed-doors.

The bank had gone to court to seize the assets of some farmers it claims hadn't paid their loans.

Judge Hovakimyan never issued a decision regarding the motion, but he ordered the reporter to leave the court chambers anyway.

On August 19, Hetq covered the story.

On the same day, the datalex.am website (a judiciary portal) noted that the case was heard in "open court".

Apparently, the description in the website worried Judge Hovakimyan for he started to "correct" the court documents. But he still wasn't sure if the trial had taken place in "closed session" or not.

On August 22, when I visited datalex.am, I was surprised to read that Judge Hovakimyan had changed to wording to read "close door" in a description of the trial.

I guess the judge figured that the reality of a trial session that took place behind closed doors might magically change to "open door" by some simple rewording.

In fact, Judge Hovakimyan is merely digging a deeper hole for himself when it comes to judicial ethics.

It appears that the good judge has no clue that the proceedings of a closed door trial cannot be made public at a later date. That's the whole rationale behind such a trial – to keep certain details and information from public scrutiny.

Even Judge Hovakimyan stated that the August 17th trial was closed to the public because it involved certain bank secrets.

However, in clear violation of the law, the entire verdict can be accessed on the datalex.am website.

Another perplexing contradiction in terms.

Closed door, open door, jeez, make up your mind!

I'd urge Judge Hovakimyan to get a copy of the judicial codebook and do his homework.