Lawyer: Yerevan Civil Court recognizes  decree  on dissolution of  Artsakh  as invalid and signed under duress

ArmInfo. The Yerevan Civil Court of General Jurisdiction has recognized that the September 28, 2023, decree by the fifth President of Artsakh regarding the dissolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is invalid and  was  signed under the use of force or threat of force.

 Lawyer Roman Yeritsyan made this statement today, February 2, when speaking with reporters  at the Artsakh Representative Office in Armenia. He noted that while the court, chaired by Judge Ashot Hovhannisyan, had  previously dismissed the lawsuit filed by fifth President of Artsakh  Samvel Shahramanyan against the Ministry of Education, Culture, and  Sports (MESCS) and  the Armenian history textbook author for 9th  grade, Nzhdeh Hovsepyan, it nevertheless made this critical legal  assertion.

Furthermore, the court noted that while the honor and dignity of the  plaintiff (Samvel Shahramanyan - ed.) were not violated, it  nevertheless acknowledged that the information in the textbook was  incomplete. "The court thereby recognized the legitimacy and validity  of the plaintiff's concerns. The court also instructed the MESCS to  provide more complete information in the textbook," the lawyer noted.

Specifically, the lawyer noted that the textbook should have  presented the full content of the decree: when it was adopted, the  rationale behind it, whether it was issued under conditions of force  or threat of force, the nature of that threat, and, most importantly,  the fact that  the decree was annulled in Armenia.

Yeritsyan believes that the court's wording signifies a  partial  achievement of justice. "And in this case, claiming that the  dismissal of the lawsuit constitutes a defeat for Shahramanyan would  be incorrect; on the contrary, he achieved the desired result. The  court decision upheld the decree's invalidity and noted the  incompleteness of the information in the textbook," the lawyer  stated.

Yeritsyan also mentioned the possibility that the defendant might  appeal the court's findings, and the plaintiff may appeal the court's  decision. He explained that they are waiting  for the verdict to  fully enter into force, after which they intend to submit a request  to the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports (MOESCS)  to incorporate the court's recognized assertions into the textbook.  The lawyer did not rule out the possibility of filing an  administrative appeal based on this verdict.

It should be noted that experts discovered inaccuracies and incorrect  wording related to the Nagorno- Karabakh conflict in the new edition  of the Armenian history textbook, which covers events from the late  19th century to the early 21st century. Subsequently, in early  September 2025, Samvel Shahramanyan's lawyers filed a lawsuit on his  behalf against the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture and  other responsible officials for defamatory statements in the  9th-grade "History of Armenia" textbook regarding events surrounding  Artsakh between the fall of 2020 and the fall of 2023. Specifically,  as Yeritsyan noted at the time, the textbook included clains such as  "Samvel Shahramanyan signed a decree on the dissolution of Artsakh"  and "Shahramanyan is the one who surrendered the NKR." The lawyer  expressed his conviction that the Armenian authorities intended to  shift responsibility for the surrender of the Nagorno- Karabakh  Republic to the Artsakh leadership.