Suspects to be Monitored with Electronic Bracelets: New Changes in Criminal Case Initiation Procedure

The concept of initiating a criminal case may disappear from the Armenian legal system. The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia has proposed a new bill for the "Criminal Procedure Code," which suggests replacing the action of initiating a criminal case with the initiation of proceedings. The investigation will now be immediately replaced by a preliminary investigation, simplifying the initiation of the pre-trial process.

“In other words, when there is sufficient information about a crime, the investigator draws up a report, immediately proceeds to the preliminary investigation, and informs the prosecutor’s office about it. Moreover, the investigation will be conducted in parallel with the preliminary investigation. According to the investigator’s instructions, the investigative body will carry out secret investigative actions and conduct operational intelligence activities,” said Justice Minister Rustam Badasyan while presenting the bill in the National Assembly.

Changes have also been made to the measures of restraint under the new code. New measures have been proposed, including house arrest and administrative supervision. To practically implement these new measures of restraint, the minister stated that the state procurement process for electronic bracelets has already been planned.

“In the case of a house arrest decision, the individual’s address will be recorded, and supervision will be carried out either through electronic monitoring bracelets or by local supervision from the probation service,” Badasyan stated.

Another innovation is the digital search, which involves searching the data of electronic storage devices. According to Badasyan, there are regulatory gaps in the current legislation regarding this aspect, and the new code will allow for the regulation of this modern and highly applicable means of search.