SJC Monopoly Authorities: why does “My Step” Take that Step

As assessed by H. Harutyunyan, the latest recommendation package does not have any connection in terms of compliance with international best standards and as an example the section of changes in disciplinary institute, where citizens were enabled to directly apply to the Supreme Judicial Council shall be separated.

By the current regulation of the domestic legislation, the RA Ministry of Justice, the Commission on Ethics and Disciplinary Issues, as well as the Corruption Prevention Commission in separate legislative grounds, would have been as an intermediate link.

The mentioned bodies could have examined the cases and in case of having grounds forward the cases to the Supreme Judicial Council.

The availability of such intermediate links has often been welcomed by the Venice Commission, which complies to international standards.

The authors of the project highlight, that such direct opportunity was established to protect the rights of the citizens.

“Such approach has negative nature, since here we don’t exclude the violations or raise the efficiency of the judicial performance, but rather we create new risks and additional workload for the judges and Supreme Judicial Council. In this case, it’s hard to imagine cases, the two parties of which would be satisfied from the exit of the case. Besides, the Supreme Judicial Council is vested with a power, which is not prescribed by the RA Constitution” – mentioned H. Harutyunyan.

As stated by H. Harutyunyan, the current draft law leads to a new distorted condition of disciplinary institute and creates an opportunity for political mediation, besides eliminates perspectives for the efficiency of judicial independence and independence.