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 participated in the event.

Ms. Ani Mkhitaryan, Judge of the Civil Court of Appeal of the RA, the Head of the Working Group on Judicial Performance Evaluation Reforms, emphasized that the discussion refers to a very important issue. Then she presented the content of the changes implemented by the working group, emphasized several key issues that were important for discussion.

“The evaluation system is an innovation in our legal system, it was introduced in 2018. As a new institution with no precedent, there was a need for the SJC to conduct a study of international experience in order to create a methodology for assessment that would ensure the implementation of the standards defined by the Code,” Mkhitaryan said.

According to her, the system was created, which also reflected the best international experience, but in RA it did not achieve the result for which it was created.

“The results of the evaluation of the judges did not give us the opportunity to distinguish and decide which of the judges we should give preference to when involving in the promotion list, almost all of them received from 90 to 00 points, which was included in the high points. It is not the point that we think judges do not deserve such appraisal, but its prevalence caused doubts that the methodology itself does not allow for it,” the judge noted.

Details in the video.