The electronic system established by the law HO-11 of 22 December, 2023 “On Amendments and Additions to the Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia” has already been launched at the website address https://cabinet.armlex.am.
The above law shall enter into force on the tenth day following the this announcement on February 1, 2024.
Starting from 1 February, 2024, all procedural documents (claim, application, complaint, response, position, motion, etc.) in new court cases submitted to the court must be drawn up and submitted through the System in accordance with the tools provided by the System and the requirements set forth (with the exception of information constituting a state secret, which is presented only in material form) by the entities listed below:
- Legal entities, individual entrepreneurs, state and local self-government bodies, respondents in procurement dispute proceedings, representative attorneys, bankruptcy administrators, notaries and licensed mediators, regardless of whether or not they have ever taken any action through the System,
- Natural persons who performed any action through the System at least once within the framework of a civil case and subsequently did not inform the court examining the case about the impossibility of using the System.
The Ministry of Justice has published a software manual for digitization of civil proceedings of the Unified Electronic Justice Platform.
The manual developed by the Ministry of Justice states that an electronic system has been developed within the framework of the “Unified Platform of Electronic Justice”, which will ensure the electronic initiation, investigation, resolution and appeal of civil cases, as well as the possibilities of effective management by the court related to judicial actions, in accordance with the Civil Procedure Code and other legal acts of the RA..
According to the manual, as a result of the use of the above-mentioned toolkit, the automation of civil litigation processes will lead to flexible management of the deadlines for decisions (judgments) and increase the efficiency of litigation processes.
System capabilities
The Ministry of Justice notes that the system has been built in such a way as to enable electronic initiation, examination, resolution and appeal of civil cases at the first instance courts of general jurisdiction, court of appeals and cassation courts, in accordance with the RA Civil Procedure Code.
The system ensures the circulation of documents resulting from the implementation of actions, based on the concepts defined by legislation, the chain and logic of the implementation of actions, as well as the implementation of the following functions:
– a special system for calculating trial terms and informing about them, as well as a toolkit for trial documents drawn up by the court through automated data generation and sending them to the addressee:
– automatic generation of documents based on the data entered by the relevant persons,
– downloading, uploading, creation, transfer, circulation of documents, access to authorized persons, as well as availability of appropriate document templates in the system and their use,
-signing the created or uploaded document using an electronic digital signature,
– the generation and archiving by means of recording and summarizing of the minutes of court sessions in accordance with the applicable legislation,
– provision of electronic document circulation, information exchange and communication between courts and other bodies, including automatic execution of requests and receipt of responses to requests, which is carried out through the Mulberry system for automating internal operations and interdepartmental document circulation,
– the presentation of legal documents and the making of judicial acts provided for by the legislation,
– automatic registration of cases and automatic distribution among judges,
– the implementation of court sessions by means of audio-visual communication,
– sending automated and non-automated notifications to relevant persons, proper implementation of electronic notifications.
– Automatic creation of the log of actions performed through the system.
– the collection and publication of statistical data on the unified platform.
This publication was prepared by the “Armenian Lawyers’ Association” (ALA) NGO in cooperation with CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia within the framework of the “Multi-Faceted OGP Action: Open Justice & Anti-Corruption Commitments” project implemented with the support of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), in the framework of the European Union funded “EU for Integrity Programme for the Eastern Partnership” Action.
The publication expresses the position of the author, the ALA, which does not necessarily coincide with the position of the OGP and the EU.
