Either the justice minister received wrong information or he hasn’t fully examined the materials since Minister Rustam Badasyan doesn’t have the relevant powers and has made an illegal decision to dismiss Amatuni Virabyan. This is what Tigran Grigoryan, attorney of former director of the National Archives of Armenia SNCO Amatuni Virabyan, told reporters today.

“The decision is due to the fact that the SNCO failed to pay taxes in mid-2018. If this is the case, the powers of the director had to be terminated by the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development the day after that since the National Archives of Armenia were part of the ministry back then, but the powers weren’t terminated. This means violations weren’t detected,” he said.

Grigoryan expressed certainty that this decision is targeted against Virabyan since there are also similar situations in other SNCOs, but such issues haven’t emerged anywhere. The attorney concluded that he and his client will appeal the decision to court.