The Armenian Lawyers’ Association (ALA) and the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of the Armenia have been working on several studies since 2018 to find ways to address judicial reform issues.

Ms Syuzanna Soghomonyan, Anti-Corruption Expert of the ALA said during the online expert workshop on the study “Integrity Checking and Responsibility of Judges under the extraordinary conditions (of transitional justice): International experience and mechanisms for implementation in Armenia” organized jointly by the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia, and Armenian Lawyers’ Association.

She presented the international experience, noting that when in 2019, the study on transitional justice was published, the experience of about 35 countries was studied, and it was the beginning of understanding which countries’ experience can be relied on both in terms of success as well as the failure.

“In the framework of this latest study, we have identified 5 countries – Ukraine, Georgia, which in our expert opinion are not so successful, as though the legislative changes have been made, but most importantly, perhaps due to lack of political will, no reform could be implemented and succeeded, and it turned out that these were certain steps to increase the level of public confidence. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania, the latter of which is considered one of the most successful countries, given that constitutional changes have been made and judges and prosecutors have been left out of the judiciary on the basis of that integrity checking. And the fifth country is Kenya, which is also considered one of the most successful countries,” Suzanna Soghomonyan said.

The anti-corruption expert noted that, as a rule, a great challenge for judicial reforms, including judicial vetting, is to find solutions to the following dilemmas:

• What legal and institutional arrangements should be envisaged to ensure that they comply with international standards and, at the same time, meet specific needs in the national context?
• How to develop effective laws, ensuring their full implementation in accordance with the spirit and letter of the law?
• How to ensure the external and internal independence of judges, while at the same time ensuring accountability to the public?
• How to acquire support from the representatives of judiciary, the government, the opposition, NGOs, the media and other groups, while not sacrificing the main pillars of reform?

Mo information on the study is available here.