The opening ceremony of the Academy of Justice took place today. President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan attended the ceremony as well.
According to the Justice Minister Hrayr Tovmasyan, the establishment of the Academy of Justice was to create a common practice.
“When you read the same lesson separately and I read the same for myself, it is possible that we may perceive it differently, or our lecturers may introduce the theme in different ways. However our interests and roads may conflict in one place and it is the court,” Hrayr Tovmasyan said.
According o the Minister of Justice in future the Academy will expand its activities and will include the Notary and Advocate’s schools as well.
The Rector of the Academy Ruben Melikyan informed that the professional training of the persons included in the list of candidates to judges and prosecutors will be 8.5 months. They will study such adjacent disciplines as time management, stress management and fundamentals of psychology, etc.
According to Hrayr Tovmasyan the judge in Armenia shall be wise and virtuous man.
On 30 June 2012, President Serzh Sargsyan signed a decree on the “Approval of the 2012-2016 Strategic Programme for Legal and Judicial Reforms in the Republic of Armenia and the List of Measures deriving from the Programme.” Among the measures of the strategic program aimed to ensure fair, effective and publicly accountable judiciary it was planned to establish the Academy of Justice as well. It was to replace the “Judicial Scholl of the Republic of Armenia” and the “Prosecutor’s School,” and on the contrary to the opinion that the future or currently practicing prosecutors and judges shall not be drawn closer in such way, however the Academy of Justice was registered as a SNCO on 20 December 2013 and started complete operation since January 2014. Henceforth, education in the Academy of Justice is required to become a judge or a prosecutor.
According to the law the Academy also aims to train the judges, prosecutors, court employees, the civil servants in the prosecution staff and the bailiffs, improve their professional knowledge as well as to realize joint educational programs for the representatives of judiciary and prosecution systems.
The sum of 300 million AMD is allocated from the state budget to cover the costs of the Academy of Justice in 2014. This is excluding the scholarship of the persons included in the list of the candidates to judges and prosecutors (around 100.000 AMD for each).
P.S. The cost of the construction of the building complex for the Academy of Justice with total area of 2698 square meters (including the land 2500 square meters) is 844.681.213 AMD. The Construction was funded by the World Bank.
