Our readers are familiar with the odyssey that Investigative Journalists of Armenia has been on, trying to get documents from the Yerevan Mayor's Office. The NGO has sought to obtain from Mayor Yervand Zakharyan decisions regarding land allocations in the public park surrounding Yerevan's Opera House taken from 1997 to 2003 by Zakharyan and his predecessors. A year spent in and out of courts of all instances has at last yielded positive results.

On October 29, 2004, the Court of Cassation of the Republic of Armenia examined the suit and reversed the September 16, 2004 verdict of the Court of Appeal on Civil Cases, sending the case back to the Court of Appeal for a new hearing.

On December 1, 2004 the Court of Appeal on Civil Cases, Judge Avanesyan presiding, reexamined the case and complied with the suit, obliging the Mayor's Office to provide the Investigative Journalists with the decisions in question.

The Mayor's Office, unwilling to accept the ruling, appealed to the Court of Cassation. On February 10, 2005 the Court of Cassation reexamined the case and left the ruling of the Court of Appeal in force, requiring the Mayor's Office to provide the journalists with all decisions in question and leaving open no further avenues of appeal.

Should the Mayor's Office refuse to provide us with these documents, they will be forced to do so or ordered to pay a fine in the amount of 200 minimum salaries (100,000 drams), as required by the Law on Service of Obligatory Execution of Writs. And according to Article 353 of the Criminal Code of Armenia, "willful failure by an official to carry out an effective court sentence, verdict or other court act, or hindrance of their implementation, is punishable by a fine in the amount of 300 to 500 minimum salaries, or by arrest for a term of 1-3 months, or imprisonment for a term of up to two years."