The monitoring of the National Strategy for the Protection of Human Rights and its Implementation Action Plan is underway under the “Promotion of Straight Democracy for Strengthening Human Rights in Armenia” project.

The project traditionally provides the public with summary information on the monitoring results, covering specific areas of the Action Plan each week. Previous materials have already provided to the public attention the information on the activities carried out by the RA Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the RA Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, the RA Ministry of Defense, information on some of the work done by the RA Police, as well as the RA Ministry of Justice. This week we will refer to another part of the work carried out by the RA Ministry of Justice within the framework of the action plan, presenting the presenting the work done in the areas of the right to a fair trial and freedom of expression.

In the first half of 2020, the Action Plan for 2020-2022, based on the National Strategy for the Protection of Human Rights, provided for the legislative establishment of clear criteria for the use of bail as an alternative measure of restraint. The “RA Law on Making Addenda and Amendments to the RA Criminal Procedure Code”, adopted on 14 April, 2020, sets clear criteria for the use of bail as an alternative measure of restraint. In particular, as a result of legislative changes, the provisions of the RA Criminal Procedure Code have been harmonized with the legal positions expressed by the RA Constitutional Court Decision SDO-1480 of October 15, 2019, international legal documents guaranteeing personal liberty, as well as other criminal procedural norms related to precautionary measures have been improved, the norms that do not actually work in law enforcement practice have been repealed.

Thus, this action was performed in accordance with the set deadlines.

Measures to be taken regularly in 2020-2022 include training of investigators (target indicator: 11% of investigators), prosecutors (target indicator: 25% of prosecutors) and judges (target indicator: 41% of judges) on the right to a fair trial on the topic in accordance with international standards. The training topics were included in the training program of the RA Academy of Justice in 2020 in one way or another, but no trainings were conducted. The training program entitled “Current Issues of Application of ECHR Legal Positions in Criminal Cases” included in the 2020 program envisages the current case law of the ECHR on the protection of the right to a fair trial and the issues of its application to the Republic of Armenia as an independent topic. At the same time, 5 investigators of the RA Special Investigation Service were trained on this topic in the first half of 2020.

Regarding the right to freedom of expression, in 2020-2022 it is planned to carry out training for all government officials who are responsible for providing information, on relevant standard of domestic and international legislation on the topic of the right to receive information. Within the framework of this action, the training program on the right to information has already been discussed by the Office of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and is being finalized, and the trainings will be implemented from September 2020. So far no trainings have been conducted.

More detailed monitoring results in the above and other areas will be presented in the monitoring report, which will be prepared after the completion of the research field work. A package of recommendations aimed at improving the implementation of the National Strategy for the protection of human rights in the country as a whole will be presented the competent authorities as well.

This publication has been produced in the scope of the “Promoting Direct Democracy for Strengthening Human Rights in Armenia” project implemented in the framework of the “Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility” project funded by the European Union

The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the fellow for the “Promoting Direct Democracy for Strengthening of Human Rights in Armenia” project and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union.