YEREVAN, MARCH 12, NOYAN TAPAN. On March 11 the defence lawyers of Arman Babajanian, former editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Zhamanak Yerevan", received back their cassation appeal. According to them, the appeal was returned with gross violations of law: the appeal was submitted on January 22, and the decision to accept or reject it must be made within 10 days, i.e. by February 1. In response to inquiry of lawyer Z. Postanjian, there was a verbal answer on March 6 that the RA Cassation Court has not yet made any decision. After applying in writing to the Cassation court on March 7, a backdate decision - of February 26 - on returing the appeal was received. The lawyers also drew attention to the fact that the decision about rejection of the appeal is given with standard motivation. The defence lawyers intend to appeal to the RA Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. Violations of some articles of the RA Constitution will form the basis of the application: particularly, by the Constitution, the prosecutor's office has to power to conduct a preliminary investigation, and the Criminal Procedure Code's article giving such power contradicts the Constitution. The lawyers also intend to dispute the constitutionality of abstract formulation regarding the appeal's return, as well as the constitutionality of power of the interdepartmental commission that releases from criminal responsibility for draft evasion.

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