Advocate Hovhannes Kocharyan believes that the only possible way to develop the judicial system in Armenia, in addition to the criminal procedure and criminal law reforms, is the establishment of the Juries Court in the Republic of Armenia.
“The Constitution of 1995 provided that such a provision, but in my opinion the discussions which were carried out on the emotional and personal awareness background appeared to be very poor service to our public: our society refused the Juries Court. I think the juries court in fact is a true democratic institution of the court, the court of facts and not the court of the street,” the advocate stressed and added that the society can be trusted to have an opportunity to speak in the court.
“Finally, it is not a public, but a state court, where the public has its participation, in addition our public for example with regard to the events that took place in Gyumri showed a more robust and adequate approach to that legal appearance. I am talking about the responses to the criminal offence. And the public was more precise than the state apparatus,” he said.
To our question whether this institute can operate in our society ignoring the few number of the population and the conflicts of interests, Mr. Kocharyan replied, “I think they are non-scientific approaches. We recognize that the system shall not function here, not because the ideas of morality and justice in our society are distorted, but I think just on the contrary, they are still preserved by the public at large. Different opinions will be presented about the institute, I understand them,” Mr. Kocharyan said.
The lawyer believes that the current judicial system is no longer viable. “It fails to prove the negative facts positively. It has lost this potential, and the presumption of innocence has become a decorative principle. In all criminal cases there is on principle: presumption of reliability of the materials. Something which is excluded in the juries court, because they cannot be controlled totally by the Government,” Mr. Kocharyan stressed.
