The matter concerns the criminalization of serious insults adopted by parliament last summer.
Under amendments to the Armenian Criminal Code enacted last summer anyone insulting government officials and public figures risks paying hefty fines or going to jail for up to three months.
Opposition members and human rights activists criticized the authorities for adopting the measure, describing it as an infringement of free speech.
Former ombudsman Arman Tatoyan took the matter to the Constitutional Court, insisting that the law is unconstitutional.
Grigorian took over Tatoyan’s office in February and is now due to present the case at litigations opening on March 22.
Talking to reporters on Friday, Grigorian insisted that there is no conflict of interest in her involvement in the case on the other side now.
“According to our legislation, it is the government that presents its position. I presented the government’s point of view as a co-rapporteur,” she explained.
Grigorian added that she was not going to withdraw any application submitted to the High Court by her predecessor. “But we do have some ambiguous perceptions and problems with practice,” she added.
Tatoyan declined to comment on how unbiased his successor would be in pursuing a case against amendments that she herself defended in parliament only a few months ago. He only stressed the importance of a proper presentation of the case against the criminalization of serious insults that he said has become a means of shielding state officials and politicians from criticism.
The Constitutional Court did not suspend the effect of the law despite agreeing to consider Tatoyan’s claim.
Since the adoption of the amendments last summer about two dozen criminal cases have been referred to courts under the penal code article on “grave insults.” The bulk of the cases are related to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, who has heard some strong-worded criticism mainly from the nationalist and conservative flank of the political spectrum since Armenia’s defeat in a war against Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.
A number of international organizations, including the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, have called on Armenia to decriminalize “grave insults.” The U.S. democracy watchdog Freedom House has repeatedly said that the passage and enforcement of the controversial law highlighted a “clear degradation of democratic norms” in Armenia.
Armenian authorities have defended the controversial law. Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian said earlier this month that the law is necessary for “reducing or neutralizing the scale and impact of hate speech.”