Rustam Badasyan Discusses Reforms in the Judicial System

Armenia has a clear agenda for implementing fundamental and in-depth reforms in the judicial system, supported by strategic documents approved by civil society and the international community. These reforms have already begun practical implementation, including the Judicial Code and the Law on the Seizure of Property of Illegal Origin. This view was expressed by the Minister of Justice of Armenia, Rustam Badasyan, who emphasized that the reforms in the Judicial Code and related laws include provisions for integrity and asset verification, which will be carried out by the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (I believe we will see the fruits of this reform in the near future).

The Commission will also be empowered to verify the asset declarations of current judges, members of the Supreme Judicial Council, and judges of the Constitutional Court through a detailed analysis and cross-referencing of data from all years' declarations. Badasyan stated this on his Facebook page.

“We have refined the procedure for holding judges accountable. You can review the decisions made based on my proposals for disciplinary actions against judges on the website of the Supreme Judicial Council and compare the quantity with any previous period. The Law on the Seizure of Property of Illegal Origin provides the competent authority, the Prosecutor General's Office, with the opportunity to examine the legality of property acquisition based on relevant grounds and to file a claim for the seizure of property if it is found that the acquisition cannot be substantiated, for instance, with income sources and if its value exceeds the threshold of 50 million drams.

In Armenia's history, these unprecedented tools are already in use, and the bodies implementing them, including the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, the Supreme Judicial Council, and the relevant subdivision to be established in the Prosecutor General's Office aimed at seizing property of illegal origin from September onwards, will begin their application, and the first results will be recorded.

According to the minister, constitutional reforms will also be a logical continuation of all these issues aimed at creating a truly independent judiciary. “Once again, I remind you that all these issues were brought to the agenda in the summer of 2019 through the draft strategic document. The current phase also includes the development of procedures to ensure the use of electronic justice tools, solutions to court workload, psychological testing for candidates for judges, the application of written procedures in administrative proceedings, the development of alternative dispute resolution methods, and ongoing efforts toward providing free legal aid,” Badasyan emphasized.

He characterized the march of democracy in Armenia as irrefutable, asserting that corruption in all its manifestations will fail; there is no alternative to this. “The Ministry of Justice of Armenia has taken on the responsibility for in-depth reforms in this area, and I will not justify myself nor will I ever evade political responsibility for the stated area, but I will not allow ongoing issues that are outside the scope of the Ministry of Justice—such as whether to arrest or not, to convict or not, instances of dishonesty and corruption by individual judges, and so forth—to be attributed to us. As for ‘legalism’ and ‘legal sectarianism,’ these are equally deserving categories. The first does not grasp the essence of social relations, turning the law into an incomprehensible and illogical tool and driving any development into a dead end; the representatives of the second, lacking genuine will for reform (which requires knowledge, will, the desire to work, initiative, and perseverance), solemnly tell society about short-term rescue programs, claiming that everything can be done in an instant, simply by taking and deleting. Anyone identifying themselves with these categories has the right to be offended,” the minister noted.