I have a negative attitude to the phenomenon when the Ministry of Justice discusses an issue of public importance, but not all interested parties are invited: Marat Atovmyan

Advocate Marat Atovmyan, President of “Progress” Center for Social Research NGO, Founder of “Atovmyan” Law Firm, Member of the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenian, speaking to Iravaban.net about the work done by non-governmental organizations in the field of judicial reform, he mentioned that years ago, in 2018, the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenian organized a large scale conference and a study was conducted.

“Both the new announcements were quite meaningful, including the international experience was well studied and presented, extensive expert work was done,” Marat Atovmyan said.

He also mentioned that a few days ago he learned from the media reports about the discussion entitled “Course of Judiciary Reform in Post-Revolution and Post-Election Armenia” organized by the Ministry of Justice in cooperation with within the framework of the operational program “Partnership for Open Society Initiative” of Open Society Foundations-Armenia.

“According to media reports, I came to the perception that an objective was set, I do not know in what way, but to carry out the vetting of judges as soon as possible,” he said.

According to Marat Atovmyan, the discussion of such issues should be as inclusive as possible.

“In general, I have a negative attitude to the phenomenon when the Ministry of Justice discusses an issue of public importance, but not all interested parties of the society are invited, and the choice of participants is carried out selectively. If we are talking about transparency and accountability, then it should be manifested here as well,” the lawyer said.

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Iravaban.net has already referred to the veiled event dedicated to the judicial reforms of the Ministry of Justice and some civil society organizations that have become partners.

To recall that on 1 November, the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia (currently includes 71 civil society organizations) and the Armenian Lawyers Association published two joint expert studies on Integrity Checking and Responsibility of Judges under the extraordinary conditions (of transitional justice) and the Guarantees of Independence and Effective Functioning of the Court.