Judge Davit Harutyunyan of the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction believes that the amendments to Armenia’s Judicial Code and Criminal Procedure Code passed earlier in February will not survive long, while the reactions of international organizations to the legislative changes will not be late.
“Sooner or later, the law will be declared unconstitutional, or the leading international organizations, that were referred to during the adoption of the amendments, will call for their review,” Harutyunyan told Panorama.am in an interview on Wednesday.
“I simply rule out that the Venice Commission would have approved the passage of such a bill in such a manner. I believe the position of the Venice Commission concerning another situation has been falsely presented. In addition, based on an application, the Constitutional Court will rule on this law sooner or later,” he stated.
The Armenian National Assembly passed in the second and final reading the draft laws calling for amendments and supplements to the Judicial Code and the Criminal Procedure Code on February 9.
Under the amendments authored by ruling Civil Contract faction MPs Vladimir Vardanyan and Vahagn Hovakimyan, five members of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), a state body overseeing Armenian courts, are enough to greenlight disciplinary proceedings against judges. Previously, such decisions had to be approved by at least seven of the ten SJC members.
The changes lowering this threshold were not included in the initial version of the bill adopted by the parliament in the first reading in January. They were added shortly before its passage in the second reading.
“The new law has neutralized and nullified the constitutional guarantees for judges’ independence. The Constitution clearly set the threshold for bringing judges to account, suspending them, etc. The amendments cannot be called a clarification of the SJC’s powers. Obviously, the constitutional guarantees for the independence of judges are being neutralized or reduced,” Harutyunyan said.
Before being put on the agenda of the parliament, the authors did not discuss the proposed changes with representatives of the legal community. Armenian lawyers and judges were unaware of them.
“No judge was aware of the changes. We can assume from the statements that only certain members of the SJC were aware of such wordings of the law or they themselves made such formulations along with some MPs. There are SJC judges, who were unaware of the bill,” the judge stated.
He said he would have opposed the amendments if they had been discussed with judges. “They run counter to the Constitution, neutralizing or eliminating the constitutional guarantees,” the judge said.
In response to the question why such controversial changes were made, the judge quoted Minister of Justice Karen Andreasyan as saying at the February 10 cabinet meeting that the move “aims to remove bad judges from the judicial system.”
“The statements of minsters and judges make it clear that the law seeks to get rid of judges or to punish them under the guise of the clarification of the SJC powers. I tend to believe the justice minister’s statements. As for who the bad judges are, it turns out that the minister will decide for himself,” Harutyunyan noted, adding circle of “bad” judges has already been outlined.
As a result of the discussions that followed the launch of disciplinary proceedings against the judges of the SJC, Harutyunyan came to the conclusion that the state body first picks up judges, and then tries to ascribe violations to them.
“The last [SJC] meeting, especially the questions and answers, made it clear that reports about possible violations [of judges] are not submitted to the SJC, but rather judges are picked up first and then efforts are made to ascribe certain violations to them. To put it short, the selection of judges is mostly targeted,” he stressed.
Harutyunyan claims there is already opposition to the law, which will father intensity in the future.