Vetting Idea Discussed Again

According to the "Zhoghovurd" newspaper, on February 25, parliamentary hearings will be held in the National Assembly regarding the package of amendments to the Judicial Code and related laws. This was announced yesterday by Arusyak Julhakyan, a member of the NA Legal and Judicial Affairs Committee, who emphasized that the discussion will focus on the vetting law.

This announcement is noteworthy because it seems the authorities had abandoned the very idea of vetting, but now a representative of the My Step faction is again labeling it as such. It is known that on May 20, 2019, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made a statement regarding the judicial system, saying that all judges currently operating in Armenia should be subject to vetting. "That is, the public should have complete information about the political connections and background of a judge, their property situation, status as a judge, activities conducted in previous periods, as well as individual and professional characteristics," the Prime Minister stated.

Immediately after the Prime Minister's statement, on May 21, the My Step faction of the National Assembly made the decision to draft a law on vetting. However, the faction did not finalize it, as the authorities changed their mind during this process and decided that issues related to judges could be resolved through constitutional reforms, which would also improve the judicial system.

According to the information obtained by "Zhoghovurd", representatives of the authorities have recently held discussions on this topic frequently and have ultimately returned to the idea of vetting. What these discussions will yield and how they will be able to improve the judicial system will be shown by time.

For more details, see today's issue of the newspaper.