On 2 November, the Ministry of Justice organized a discussion entitled “Course of Judiciary Reform in Post-Revolution and Post-Election Armenia” with the support of the Open Society Foundations-Armenia within the framework of the program “Partnership for Open Society Initiative”.

The Ministry of Justice reported that the discussion was held “with the participation of more than 50 stakeholders.”

Hayk Margaryan, President of the “Support for Equal Opportunities Foundation” NGO in the conversation with Iravaban.net said that he was not present at that discussion, “I was not aware of it, I did not receive any invitation to discuss vetting,” he said.

Speaking about the discussion organized by the Ministry, Hayk Margaryan said that he did not follow the process. “I can only say that in the same way as they used to do when creating the Anti-Corruption Commission, when they did not ask anyone, they elected themselves, they are doing it in the same way now.

Mr. Margaryan also referred to the briefing of the Minister of Justice Karen Andreasyan with the journalists in the National Assembly on November 3, during which the minister mentioned: “Whoever understands something from vetting in this country, the smartest people gathered yesterday, we have not summed up the results yet, in 1-2 days they will present what the experts understood, whether it is possible or not. If it is possible, we will start working out a separate law on vetting in a few days, if it is not possible, then we will think about that issue together with the constitutional reforms.”

Hayk Margaryan said ․ “It turns out that we actually are not among those smart people.”

He once again reiterated the fact that the organization he heads is a member of the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition, and fully in favor of two expert studies published jointly by the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia and the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, that refer to integrity checking and the guarantees of independence and effective functioning of the court.

“All the organizations included in the Coalition should have been invited to that event, and we have a lot to say. There are smart people here too,” Hayk Margaryan says.

Notably, 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.