The Ministry of Justice has repeatedly announced the implementation of judicial reforms, but does not provide the public with substantive information on specific actions taken as such, including the implementation of the current Judicial and Legal Reforms Strategies for 2019-2023 and the Implementation Action Plans Issuing from it. Moreover, the latest report published on the website of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia on the performance of the judicial strategy and the implementation of its actions refers to the course of actions to be implemented in the second half of 2020. No report on activities and works performed in the first half of 2021 is posted on the website. Meanwhile, Point 13 of the section on Implementation, Coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy and Action Plan stipulates that Semi-annual reports and annual reports should be posted on the website of the Ministry of Justice.
Iravaban.net, spoke with Arzuman Harutyunyan, President of the “Association of Audio-Visual Reporters” NGO about the cooperation of the Ministry of Justice with the public. The latter mentioned that their organization has been dealing with public awareness issues for many years, and they had not noticed any change in this sphere.
“Every change must be projected on the change of public consciousness or taken to the field of public awareness. Any judicial change, if it does not reach the public at the required level, its impact is far behind, and if the public does not know what reform has been done, it may not work,” he said.
He noted that in this regard the Ministry of Justice and non-governmental organizations are not doing enough work. “I am more than sure that this issue was not raised by the Ministry of Justice – that well, we are doing something for the people, but we are not informing that people either.”
Referring to the work style of the Ministry of Justice, he noted: “They do not work with our organization in terms of forming public opinion, they do not do any work. They do not have a systemic approach in terms of public awareness. The issue of changing the public consciousness is never discussed in the Ministry of Justice. They do not set themselves such a task. I do not know who they put/assign that issue on, everyone says it is not my problem. Everyone, for their part, should have an opportunity to identify public awareness issues, understand the reasons and solve them. ”
According to Arzuman Harutyunyan, this issue needs to be raised so that they understand why it is difficult for society to accept all the reforms.
“The approach is that we are doing a good thing, but the people do not appreciate it. The explanation is – The people do not appreciate it because you do not work with the people.”
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.
