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The draft on Making Amendments and Addenda to the Constitutional Law Judicial Code of the Republic of Armenia proposes to provide a legal opportunity to appeal the decisions of the Supreme Judicial Council on the issues of holding the judge accountable and termination of the judge’s powers. The Minister of Justice Grigor Minasyan stated about this at the sitting of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs on June 6.

According to the Minister, in the reports of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) of the Council of Europe and in the opinions of the Venice Commission, the necessity to provide a legal opportunity to appeal the decisions on holding the judge accountable and terminating his powers has been emphasized many times.

The Minister considered it necessary to note that the draft of this law was developed in accordance with the instructions of the GRECO, several basic regulations were defined in it.

“According to the draft law, the examination of issues on subjecting the judge to disciplinary liability and terminating the powers of the judge will be carried out by four members of the Supreme Judicial Council. The above mentioned people dealing with the issue of subjecting the judge to disciplinary liability will be different for each disciplinary proceeding and will include two members elected by the General Assembly of Judges and the National Assembly. The examination of the appeal brought against the decision on the issue of subjecting the judge to disciplinary liability will be carried out by the Supreme Judicial Council, with members not included in the examination of the issue of subjecting the judge to disciplinary liability in the given disciplinary proceedings. A two-month period has been planned for the examination of the complaint, during which the Supreme Judicial Council will be able to cancel the decision on subjecting the judge to disciplinary liability and reject the petition to subject the judge to disciplinary liability, to appoint another type of disciplinary penalty or to eliminate the decision to reject the petition to subject the judge to disciplinary liability and to subject the judge to disciplinary liability and to leave the decision unchanged,” Grigor Minasyan said.

Grigor Minasyan asked the deputies to put the draft to a vote, including the oral proposal of the Government.

The Chair of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs Vladimir Vardanyan inquired from Grigor Minasyan whether the draft’s entry into force period should be long, in response to which Grigor Minasyan replied that the period should be set from the day when the relevant decision of the Supreme Judicial Council is made.

“The draw will not be paper-based. We expect the programme to decide which two judges and two academic members will be in the Lower Chamber. It is also important that these members are not repeated and that there are new 4 members for every case. The President of the 4-member Chamber should also be elected through the programme,” the Minister of Justice said.

The report regarding the draft was presented by Vladimir Vardanyan. He conveyed Arusyak Julhakyan’s opinion on it. The latter proposed to endorse the draft.

“It comes from the proposal of our international partners. The partners identified the problem, but did not provide a solution, we provided it,” the co-rapporteur mentioned.

The draft was approved at the Committee sitting and included in the agenda of the upcoming plenary sittings.