Judges' Salaries to Increase by 50 Percent: Rustam Badasyan

The Minister of Justice of Armenia, Rustam Badasyan, emphasizes that during the vetting process, it is more important to focus on who will be joining the system rather than who is leaving. To this end, the judicial system is being made attractive for good judges.

According to Armenpress, Badasyan made this remark during a discussion with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on the implementation of vetting processes and the regulations for the confiscation of illegally obtained property. The Prime Minister noted that even during the discussion of the government’s operational report, he felt that the authority had not sufficiently covered the changes in the judicial code that have already come into force.

He pointed out that many say the government promised vetting but has forgotten this promise. “I would like us to elaborate during this conversation on what changes are expected in the judicial system following the amendments to the Judicial Code,” he said.

Pashinyan also stressed that there have been attempts at vetting in the world, the purpose of which was to set aside the entire judicial system, leading to a situation where there was a vacuum in the country and no courts existed at all, resulting in the expulsion of both unfair and fair judges from the system.

Badasyan responded, saying, “In my opinion, what is more important is not who is leaving the judicial system, but who is filling the judicial system.” He presented some numbers regarding reforms aimed at increasing the attractiveness of the judicial system and expressed confidence that they would be able to answer the question of who would fill the judicial system.

“We have 244 judges, of whom 183 are in the First Instance Court, 44 in the Court of Appeal, and 17 in the Court of Cassation. What needs to change for the judicial system to be attractive to specialists? Moreover, from the numbers I mentioned, we have 7 vacant positions. Over the past 2 years, the number of candidates who have passed the testing phase and are undergoing training at the Justice Academy is 30. That is, in the last 2 years, we have 30 candidates, some of whom have not yet completed their education,” the minister said.

The Prime Minister inquired about what that figure indicates. Badasyan replied that it is a very low number. This is further evidence that the judicial system is not attractive to a large number of good specialists. “There is a low level of participation, which is the first signal that we need to pursue serious changes. I believe that the first condition is a decent salary, compensation.”

He added that they already have a specifically formulated document. The Judicial Department has also submitted a gradual system for increasing judges' salaries with the mid-term expenditure programs at their urging. This implies that if approved by the government, judges' salaries will increase by 50 percent in 2020, by 60 percent in 2021, and by 70 percent in 2022.

Currently, the salary of a First Instance Court judge is approximately 661,000 AMD, that of a Court of Appeal judge is 727,000 AMD, and that of a Court of Cassation judge is 760,000 AMD. If the salary increase occurs in 2020, the salary will reach 991,000 AMD, 1,057,000 AMD in 2021, and 1,123,000 AMD in 2022.