Arusyak Aleksanyan, a judge of the court of general jurisdiction of the first instance of Yerevan, who is currently in prison, submitted an application to become a Doctor of Philosophy in Law. The lawyer of the judge, Andranik Manukyan confirmed the information in the interviuew with Iravaban.net.

It should be noted that persons who have a higher education (qualified specialist or master’s degree) and have passed an exam in the relevant specialty of the list of academic degrees of Armenia can apply for the scientific degree of PhD. The degree is awarded by the professional council based on the defense of the dissertation. A degree certificate is awarded by the Higher Qualifications Committee.

“The motive was to develop even more as a lawyer, to make her thoughts even more accessible,” Andranik Manukyan mentioned in a conversation with us.

It should be noted that according to the procedure, the Higher Qualification Committee discusses the issue of awarding a scientific degree within 2 months after receiving the relevant documents.

At least 6 scientific articles, including two without co-authors, or at least three scientific articles, including at least one article in any of the scientific publications included in the Web of Science or Scopus databases and one article without co-authors, are required for obtaining of the PhD degree.

Let us remind that on 17 October, 2022, the Supreme Judicial Council approved the petitions of the Prosecutor General’s Office regarding the initiation of criminal prosecution against Judge Arusyak Aleksanyan and consent to deprivation of liberty. Within the framework of the same case, the lawyer Erik Aleksanyan was also charged under Article 46-441 of the Criminal Code, that is, he assisted an official in abusing office or official powers or the influence caused by them or exseeding the powers. In the framework of this case, Arusyak Aleksanyan’s assistant Tamara Petrosyan was also charged.

The defendants do not accept the charges against them.

Evgenia Hambardzumyan