“WE ARE NOT GOING TO CREATE COURTS CHARGING JUDGES”: ARTAK ZEYNALYAN

The RA Minister of Justice Artak Zeynalyan, the Chairman the Supreme Judicial Council Gagik Harityunyan, members of the Academic Council, students were present at the discussion.
At the beginning of the discussion the Advisor to the Minister of Justice Anna Vardapetyan came up with a report.

As an expert she referred to a number of issues related to transitional justice.

“First of I’d like to note that the notion of transitional justice should be understood in a wider connotation”, explained Anna Vardapetyan. Its task is not to punish but to find points of conciliation. The state must not become a revenge tool itself”.

According to the speaker, “justice of transitional period” is a more appropriate definition.

“The transitional period justice was used in a number of countries which passed through revolutionary upheavals. Here we can discuss the examples of Georgia, Ukraine, Albania and work out the mechanisms which won’t repeat the mistakes of these countries”.

Speaking about the tools of transitional justice the speaker pointed out both legislative and non-legislative mechanisms.

“We must speak not only about the consequences of the problem-the illegal capital and corruption rates, but must reveal the reasons for low level of trust towards judicial system, ineffectiveness of anti-corruption commissions and other problems”.

Anna Vardapetyan also stressed that at all stages of transitional justice implementation the state can’t contradict the responsibilities undertaken before international organizations.

According to Gagik Harutyunyan, here we face a number of contradictions related to transitional justice.

“It has been stressed many times that while performing transitional justice the state can’t break the responsibilities undertaken in relation to international structures, on the other hand, it should be understood whether the Constitution and the laws fixed in it will be taken into account while performing the transitional justice or it will be elevated over the Constitution”.

According to Gagik Harutyunyan, all the risks existing in the process of transitional justice must be taken into consideration.

“The system working effectively in one country can have dangerous consequences in our country and make it fail. That’s why I think that we must clearly understand what we have today, what defects today’s system has got and how it can be corrected”.

In his speech the RA Minister of Justice Artak Zeynalyan first of all thanked those present for active participation in the discussion and expressing various opinions and then noted that he spoke about the transitional justice and the risks and dangers it can cause when he was summarizing the hundred days of his office.

“In my speech I stressed at that time that no transitional justice will contradict our Constitution. We are not going to create courts charging judges. The legislative security of our country is the most important aspect in this issue”.

Mr. Zeynalyan attached importance to such discussion particularly in academic field and expressed hope that due to such discussions and academic approaches the problem will get an appropriate solution without any danger or failure for the state.

At the end of the meeting the Minister of Justice offered to come up with academic articles informing the society about the transitional justice and legally justified positive and negative opinions about it.