This story began with the report of Arman Suleymanyan, an independent journalist about a small boy living in difficult social conditions, about Smbat Harutyunyan. Smbat had a serious health problem – a skull injury, which could have ended badly if he had not had surgery. The boy’s family did not have the money needed for the operation. Many times they applied to different instances and were rejected for various reasons. According to the “officials”, the given plastic surgery was beyond the scope of the state order. All that was left was to wait for a miracle or prepare for the worst.
Hayk Hovhannisyan, managing partner of “Hovhannisyan և Partners” law firm, watched the video on one of the social networks, sent it to the other lawyers of the company, and made a unanimous decision to help the boy in need immediately.
Gagik Grigoryan, the senior lawyer of the office, undertook the direct management of the case. Studying the case, the RA legislation related to it, G. Grigoryan managed to find out the possibility of receiving paid medical service free of charge, provided for by the relevant order of the RA Minister of Health, but not clearly formulated.
According to the minister’s order, in “special cases” the minister can order free medical care. “Special cases” were not specified, standards were not set.
Using the means of legal protection provided by the RA Law on “Fundamentals of Administration վար Administrative Proceedings”, the lawyer addressed a number of letters to the RA Ministry of Health and the RA Prime Minister in order to identify and define “special cases”. As a result of Gagik Grigoryan’s persistent and persistent work, an administrative proceeding was initiated, during which the latter substantiated the “special case”, that is, the right to receive free medical care in the case of Smbat Harutyunyan.
As a result, we managed to get state funding for this “special case” for Smbat’s skull surgery.
The story, however, did not end there. Smbat was soon stopped from paying the disability pension provided by the family, which enabled the family to buy the medicine the child needed. This time, without reason.
Returning to the case, lawyer Gagik Grigoryan applied to the administrative court, after a long struggle he proved the existence of Smbat’s disability to both the court and the social service, achieving the restoration of Smbat’s pension.
We hope that this precedent will help our other disabled compatriots to defend their rights both in terms of available medical care and receiving a pension.
It should be noted that the “Hovhannisyan և Partners” law office has performed all the mentioned work completely free of charge, realizing the socially responsible role of the lawyer’s profession, having its contribution in the establishment of the rule of law.