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.

Mr. Marat Atovmyan, Vice President of Armenian Lawyers Association, Expert on Judicial and Anti-Corruption Issues, noted that there are at least two important prerequisites for ensuring the rule of law in a democratic society.

“It is the existence of an independent judiciary, an independent judicial system and having competent courts that will ensure a high level of justice and high quality. Individual assessment of judges is related to these two pillars. Individual assessment of judges’ work should certainly improve the quality of justice, but should not violate the principle of judges’ independence.

According to the expert, there is a risk that the judge may work by ignoring objectivity just to have high standards.

“If we look at the experience of different countries, especially European, we can say that these criteria for evaluating judges are used for various purposes. For example, there are countries that determine the amount of a judge’s salary based on the evaluation results. Although there are specialists who believe that the judge’s salary should not be related to these evaluations,” Marat Atovmyan said.

Details in the video.