Iravaban.net spoke with Ms Gayane Demirchyan, a member of the Board of the Chamber of Advocates, about the creation of the “Electronic Justice” Unified Management System, the effectiveness of filing claims electronically, and the problems in the system.
According to her, in terms of the idea, it is welcome when everything is done electronically and an attempt is made to make it easier, to free lawyers from paperwork.
In the conversation with us, the lawyer emphasized that, of course, there are shortcomings, and the main problem that many people face is related to uploading voluminous documents into the system, since the system allows some limited amount of upload, which also leads to problems of returns, that is, the court returns the attached documents on the ground that they were not attached, when these documents had been attached, and so these are the obvious problems.
“A problem also arises in relation with the state duty that was resubmitted with the returned claims, and thus a qyestion related with tis issue also arises, and this should be resolved. In case when many claims are entered, the system does not have filtering fields, and one should have to remember and search by case number every time, there is a need for processing and development in that regard,” Gayane Demirchyan said.
The lawyer also mentioned that the platform has formal requirements that complicate the work. “Perhaps it would be easier to submit a claim with one button. We have such platforms, for example, e-request, that’s how you submit an electronic application-complaint to the relevant state bodies. There are technical issues that complicate the lawyer’s work in terms of time saving, because it seems technical, yes, but it is also time-consuming, which takes away the most important thing from us.”
Regarding the connection with the Ministry of Justice in the framework of using the system, she mentioned that there were cases when the creators of the system were contacted, they tried to help, because there were cases of special proceedings, in which there were no parties in the procedural sense, but there was a field “respondent” that had to be filled in. According to her, it turns out that a non-legal application is entered, but they are obliged to do it in order to perform other actions in the system, not to leave the respondent’s field empty.
“There was a technical and legal conflict, and we had to include in the “respondent” field those persons who should have been in the status of a third party,” our interlocutor added.
The Chamber of Advocates often sent letters in order to get acquainted with the existing problems, to coordinate and consolidate them. Later, they are presented to the competent authority.
“Lawyers actively present the problems they face. We regularly inform the Ministry of Justice about them. They are consistent, the ministry itself is taking steps, trying to listen to the problems raised and find solutions,” Gayane Demirchyan said, expressing hope that everything will be improved in the future, because the idea is “very good”.
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.
