A High-Level Public-Private Dialogue Conference on the Judicial Performance and Statistics Systems Evaluation is organized and underway today on 14 June. The Conference is organized within the framework of the “Multi-Faceted OGP Action: Open Justice & Anti-Corruption Commitments” project. The Conference is organized with participation of the RA Ministry of Justice, Supreme Judicial Council of the RA, “Armenian Lawyers’ Association” NGO and the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia.

Chairman of the RA Supreme Judicial Council Mr. Karen Andreasyan, H.E. Mr. Vassilis Maragos, the Head of the European Union Delegation to Armenia, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Karen Karapetyan, OGP Coordinator/Point of Contact of the Office of the Prime Minister of the RA Ms. Lilya Afrikyan, Chairman of the Governing Board of the CSOs Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia Mr. Movses Aristakesyan, as well as other professionals in the field and judges are participating.

Mr. Karen Karapetyan, RA Deputy Minister of Justice welcomed the members of the forum on behalf of the Ministry, thanked the ALA, for providing the OGP constant and continuous support to these processes.

He mentioned that since 2018, the RA Government has kept the agenda of judicial and legal reforms as its primary target and within the framework of this agenda, of course, the continuous reform of the judicial system is of cornerstone importance, with a vision of strengthening the more transparent, efficient and trustworthy judicial system.

“In cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, as well as with the American partners, the SJC has developed a new package of reforms aimed at reforming the entire system for the assessment of the courts, and in accordance with international standards, its modernization, starting from the review of the standards, until, as Mr. Andreasyan thoroughly presented, the review of the platform that implements the entire process, namely the evaluation board. The proposed changes are primarily aimed at creating an independent body that carries out evaluation of courts to ensure objectivity of evaluation and at the same time to reform the system of criteria and indicators for evaluation of judges, including more objective quantitative and qualitative elements,” Karen Karapetyan said.

According to him, they hope that these reforms will be a significant stimulus for the formation of a transparent and objective evaluation system of courts, as a new, high-quality benchmark in the context of the entire justice system.

He once again thanked the EU and the Ambassador for his personal contribution to this process, emphasizing the following: “Currently, we are in the most active stage of developing the new agenda for Armenia-EU cooperation, which is planned to be formed and get a legal form in the fall of this year, and there the already extensive European support in the field of jurisprudence and judicial reforms will have an even more effective description.”

Details in the video.